Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Swamps
A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it, says that, when they had ditched about six feet deep, or to the bottom, near the edge of this swamp, they came to old flags, and he thought that the whole swamp was ounce a pond and the flag grew by the edge of it.—Journal, 22 October 1858
Everywhere in woods and swamps I am already reminded of the fall.—Journal, 23 August 1858
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.—"Walking"
I accurately pace the swamp in two directions and find it to be shaped thus:—upright sides, so that I can easily tell the species of oak that made it.—Journal, 2 February 1860
I also heard the sound of bullfrogs from a swamp on the opposite side, thinking at first that they were a moose; a duck paddled swiftly by; and sitting in that dusky wilderness, under that dark mountain, by the bright river which was full of reflected light, still I heard the wood thrush sing, as if no higher civilization could be attained.—The Maine Woods
I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength—the marrow of Nature.—"Walking"
I have been surprised to discover the amount and the various kinds of life which a single shallow swamp will sustain.—Journal, 12 May 1850
I love to see a clear crystalline water flowing out of a swamp over white sand and decayed wood, spring-like.—Journal, 18 July 1852
I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now, these bitter cold days when the snow lies deep on the ground, and I need travel but little way from the town to get to a Nova Zembla solitude,—to wade through the swamps, all snowed up, untracked by man, into which the fine dry snow is still drifting till it is even with the tops of the water andromeda and halfway up the high blueberry bushes.—Journal, 10 January 1856
I must call that swamp of E. Hubbard's west of the Hunt Pasture, Yellow Birch Swamp. There are more of those trees than anywhere else in town that I know . . . The sight of these trees affects me more than California gold.—Journal, 4 January 1853
