Low-Anchored Cloud by Henry David Thoreau

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!
~Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau is one of the most well-known American poets in U.S. history. While attending Harvard University in the 1800s he read books by his Concord neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson and never stopped looking into nature for the "ultimate Truth." One could say that this poem was one way he viewed nature as it was while he lived.

Thoreau's poem, while descriptive and interesting, took a little while for me to fully understand - and I don't believe that I believe its mean to the fullest even know. Thoreau is apparently describing the scenery of an area, with low clouds anchored above lakes and seas and rivers with air that bears the perfumes and scents of healing herbs to just men's fields. "Just" in this context might mean "truthful" or "worthy" as in perhaps the men are worthy enough to know where the healing herbs are, which is probably a meadow. The poem as a whole sounds like a description for an area that has been untouched by man and still holds the beauty that nature has before its taken away by the need for more housing and construction.