In the dull circuit of daily life, Thoreau says, moments of piercing blue arrive — as fresh and unstained as spring violets or anemones scattered by a stream. These flashes are so vivid that they make hollow any philosophy that only tries to console us for our grievances. The speaker remembers a winter night in his chilly room, watching moonlit icicles grow on rail and spout, but his mind turns instead to summer’s gifts: a forgotten ray of sun slanted across a pasture where St. John’s wort bloomed, the smothered hum of a bee loitering on a blue flag, a busy brook now frozen silent, or the gleam of newly turned furrows before snow sealed the fields. The memory of these simple, unrecorded things leaves him feeling rich — by what he calls “God’s cheap economy” — so rich that he can face his winter work again. The mood is serene and grateful, a quiet conviction that nature’s fleeting beauties, stored in memory, are the truest sustenance when life turns cold and still.
Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life — Summary
Within the circuit of this plodding life There enter moments of an azure hue, Untarnished fair as is the violet Or anemone, when the spring strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The best philosophy untrue that aims But to console man for his grievances I have remembered when the winter came, High in my chamber in the frosty nights, When in the still light of the cheerful moon, On every twig and rail and jutting spout, The icy spears were adding to their length Against the arrows of the coming sun, How in the shimmering noon of summer past Some unrecorded beam slanted across The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew; Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind, The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill, Which now through all its course stands still and dumb Its own memorial,—purling at its play Along the slopes, and through the meadows next, Until its youthful sound was hushed at last In the staid current of the lowland stream; Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned, And where the fieldfare followed in the rear, When all the fields around lay bound and hoar Beneath a thick integument of snow. So by God's cheap economy made rich To go upon my winter's task again.