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Category: Poems and Quotes

Walden Pond, Concord, MA (18July2016)

Walden Pond, Concord, MA (18July2016)

Walden Pond is located near Concord, MA, and is the site where Henry David Thoreau lived for two years in a simple cabin in the woods and wrote some of his most memorable works.  Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a treatise on simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government, also known as Civil Disobedience, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Although I understand that it’s quite busy on weekends, there…

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Song of the Open Road (Excerpts)

Song of the Open Road (Excerpts)

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune–I myself am good fortune; Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Strong and content, I travel the open road. The earth–that is sufficient; I do not want the constellations any nearer; I know they are very well where they are; I know they suffice for those who…

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Better to sink …

Better to sink …

Better to sink with tempests raging o’er Masts all dismantled and hull gaping wide Than rest and rot on some unclouded shore The idle plaything of the listless tide.   Better the grime of battle on the brow, With grim defeat to crush thy dying hand Than through long years of peace to tyrant bow Or dwell captive in a stranger’s land.   Better the castle with beleaguered gate, By battle’s lightning shivered in a day Than peaceful walls in…

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