ReReading and Virgin Reading All Things Thoreau

I have always had a copy of Walden in my beach bag whenever I go to swim there.  I have done this since at least my early teenage years.  So my most common exposure to the book is as a multimedia piece, designed to be enjoyed after a swim, in the sun, sand between the toes.

Doing research for a play about Henry (and other writers/Transcendentalist who are sneaking into the picture as well)  I am finally getting to "A Week on The Concord & Merrimack Rivers" (1849), which he wrote about a journey (in 1839) with John, his beloved brother who had died (in 1842).

The first thing that catches my eye is the mention of the word "brother".

Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me,
     Though now thou climbest loftier mounts,
     And fairer rivers dost ascend,
     Be thou my Muse, my Brother--.

The second is "A far Azore".  My mother and her side of the family are from the Azores!!!  They are in the middle of the Atlantic, nobody goes there and it is a series of visual jewels placed on the earth.  

I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore,
     By a lonely isle, by a far Azore,
     There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek,
     On the barren sands of a desolate creek.

Thoreau does indeed know his world, both near and far.  I am amazed by how much I have learned from him, and have yet to learn.