Winter Consolations

Although I've learned to find beauty outdoors even on the dreariest winter day, I must confess I've been dreaming a lot of late about the blissful spring and summer days ahead when I can go botanizing again in the fields and woods! Part of it may be that I have no flowers indoors this winter (my darling Bengals make it well-nigh impossible!), but I am longing for a sight of some wildflower, be it ever so humble! I've been consoling myself for now with lots of reading and the renewal of my botanical studies. This morning I accidentally came across this beautiful painting by William J. Whittemore, called Gathering Wildflowers. It really touched my heart and I just had to share it, along with a few favorite lines from Emerson's Wood Notes that I have just about been living on the last few weeks! Enjoy! 😊

    And such I knew, a forest seer,         

A minstrel of the natural year,

Foreteller of the vernal ides,

Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,

A lover true, who knew by heart

Each joy the mountain dales impart;         

It seemed that Nature could not raise

A plant in any secret place,

In quaking bog, on snowy hill,

Beneath the grass that shades the rill,

Under the snow, between the rocks,         

In damp fields known to bird and fox,

But he would come in the very hour

It opened in its virgin bower,

As if a sunbeam showed the place,

And tell its long-descended race.         

It seemed as if the breezes brought him,

It seemed as if the sparrows taught him;

As if by secret sight he knew

Where, in far fields, the orchis grew.

Many haps fall in the field         

Seldom seen by wishful eyes,

But all her shows did Nature yield,

To please and win this pilgrim wise.

He saw the partridge drum in the woods;

    He heard the woodcock’s evening hymn;         

He found the tawny thrushes’ broods;

And the shy hawk did wait for him;

What others did at distance hear,

And guessed within the thicket’s gloom,

Was shown to this philosopher,     

And at his bidding seemed to come.

                                                  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson