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 Nature is right outside our windows and doors. It’s what sustains us and teaches us the cycle of life and the bitter reality of impermanence. Like a good teacher, Mother Nature can be kind and patient, but she can also be harsh and stern. From the lowliest creature on earth to the nebulae and stars above, this universe evidences the utmost attention to detail and balance. The sense of awe we feel while peering out over her landscape is powerful; it’s no surprise that we have relied on nature to be our eternal muse.
Some of our most famous poets have had nature as an inspiration. Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Henry David Thoreau, for instance, are remembered for the nature-themes that intertwine themselves throughout their poems and around their readers’ hearts.
Emily Dickinson: 'Who Robbed the Woods'
Emily Dickinson’s love of nature started early. She spent much of her youth in solitude—often in meadows observing the flowers. She also used the woods as a hiding place for her fiction books, the reading of which displeased her father. From keen observation, Dickinson learned from nature and recognized herself as a part of it as expressed in the poem, “Growth of Man, like Growth of Nature:”
Growth of Man — like Growth of Nature —
Gravitates within —
Atmosphere, and Sun endorse it —
Bit it stir — alone —
Dickinson’s “Who Robbed the Woods” is a short poem that asks a deep question: “Who robbed the woods/The trusting woods?” Doesn’t everyone rob the woods in some way or another? We take wood, animals, berries, water and air without even giving a second thought as to where it all comes from or what effect our theft will have on nature. Dickinson points out humanity’s traits of curiosity and covetousness: “His fantasy to please/He scanned their trinkets, curious/He grasped, he bore away.”
This poem remains fitting for humanity today, because we are at a state of high consumption and there is no one telling us ‘no.’ However, if we listened more closely to nature, we would know the answer to Dickinson’s final question: “What will the fir-tree say?” Knowing the answer would better our relationship with the environment.
Robert Frost: 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'
Although Robert Frost didn’t consider himself a nature poet, he regularly used natural imagery in his works, although using it most often to explain human psychology rather than nature or its workings. Similar to Dickinson, Frost saw humanity as a reflection of nature.
Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is about a man on his horse stopping for a moment by a forest. First, the man is humbled by nature’s beauty: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” but the man soon realizes that he must be on his way. While it’s magical “To watch his woods fill up with snow,” it’s also dangerous to succumb to the calm and beauty for too long. Even the horse speaks up, because he understands the dark side of nature and how a snowstorm could swoop in without warning and threaten their lives.
Although enticed to stay, the man brings himself back to reality and says, “But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep/And miles to go before I sleep.” The promises could be returning to his family, friends and employer, which are similar to the distractions we all have that prevent us from falling into a trance with nature and enjoying simplicity on a daily basis.
Henry David Thoreau: 'Low-Anchored Cloud [Mist]'
Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau searched for ultimate Truth in nature. At 28, he secluded himself at Walden Pond and built a cabin on land owned by his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Although some may think Thoreau was a hermit who didn’t like people, instead he was simply removing himself from the bustle of society to provide the time and opportunity to both look within himself and to absorb nature’s wisdom.
Thoreau’s poem," Low-Anchored Cloud [Mist]," is almost a catalog of natural phenomen. He even uses some parts of nature to allude to others:
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!
This world is one of great uncertainty and impermanence but, as Thoreau wrote in Walden, “If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs,—is more elastic, more starry, more immortal,—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.”
Through their poetry, Dickinson, Frost and Thoreau express that there is something deeper, something larger than ourselves that exists within nature. They all believed that we are a refection of nature and therefore, if we observe it and absorb its truth, we can grow in self wisdom. Thoreau explains how important it is that we find this knowledge. “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth,” he writes.
Nature has a multitude of answers, as many writers have found. From their works we can glean nature’s wisdom—or better yet, we can experience it directly. Nature is, after all, waiting to share this knowledge with us just outside our nearest windows and doors. Who knows, our interaction with nature might be so inspiring that we are prompted to pen a few bons mots of our own.
[If you have a favorite poet or poem that inspires your love of and appreciation for nature, please share it with our readers using the comment form below. - Ed.]
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