THE POET’S DELAY 73 LINES 74 NATURE’S CHILD 76 THE FALL OF THE LEAF 77 SMOKE IN WINTER 82 WINTER MEMORIES 84 STANZAS WRITTEN AT WALDEN 86 THE THAW 89 A WINTER SCENE 90 THE CROW 93 TO A STRAY FOWL 94 MOUNTAINS 96 THE RESPECTABLE FOLKS 103 POVERTY 105 CONSCIENCE 107 PILGRIMS 110 THE DEPARTURE 112 INDEPENDENCE 116 DING DONG 119 MY PRAYER 121 INTRODUCTION _The fifty poems here brought together under the title ‘Poems of Nature’ are perhaps two-thirds of those which Thoreau preserved. Many of them were printed by him, in whole or in part, among his early contributions to Emerson’s_ Dial, _or in his own two volumes_, The Week _and_ Walden, _which were all that were issued in his lifetime. Others were given to Mr. Sanborn for publication, by Sophia Thoreau, the year after her brother’s death (several appeared in the_ Boston Commonwealth _in 1863); or have been furnished from time to time by Mr. Blake, his literary executor._