Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea,

Last conquest of the eye…// (ll. 1-4)

At first glance, the preceding passage offers an ordinary image of the sun hidden behind clouds. Through oxymorons he presents the boundless qualities of the low cloud of fog; the phrases “visible heat,” air water,” and dry sea” each present a state beyond the physical world free from temporal restrictions. More importantly Thoreau depicts the clouds as “ethereal gauze,” illustrating the sheerness of the clouds, yet how too the clouds partially conceal the sun from the eye. This special treatment of diaphanous media—fog and smoke—is a unique feature in Thoreau’s poems “Mist,” “Fog,” “The Sluggish Smoke” and “Light-Winged Icarian Bird.” Thoreau employs these metaphors to represent the semi-obscured realm that connects the physical world from the spiritual realm. For Thoreau, there was no distinction between the physical world and the spiritual world unlike Ralph Waldo Emerson who believes there is a division. Images of fog are fe

His early scout, his emissary, smoke,

First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad

And warmed the pinions of the early bird;

Some topics in this essay:
Waldo Emerson, Smoke” Thoreau, Smoke Icarian, Additionally Thoreau, Woven Nature's, Sluggish Smoke”, Bird” Thoreau, Icarian Bird”, Etheral Gauze”, physical world, David Thoreau, “mist” “fog”, natural world, human imagination, “half-wakened master”, “the sluggish, fog serves, sluggish smoke”, beyond physical, “the sluggish smoke”, beyond physical world, poems “mist” “fog”, phenomenal realm, physical world spiritual,