True Kindness

by

True Kindness is featured in Thoreau's collection, Poems of Nature (1895). We are impressed with his rhyming selection for "affinity." "Consanguinity" is "blood relation" in Latin; its root "sanguine" means optimistic or positive, a clever double entendre.
An illustration for the story True Kindness by the author Henry David Thoreau
Ivan Shishkin, A Walk in the Forest, 1869
An illustration for the story True Kindness by the author Henry David Thoreau
Ivan Shishkin, A Walk in the Forest, 1869
An illustration for the story True Kindness by the author Henry David Thoreau
True kindness is a pure divine affinity,
Not founded upon human consanguinity.
It is a spirit, not a blood relation,
Superior to family and station.

You may also enjoy our collection of Nature Poems.

5

facebook share button twitter share button google plus share button tumblr share button reddit share button email share button share on pinterest pinterest


Create a library and add your favorite stories. Get started by clicking the "Add" button.
Add True Kindness to your own personal library.

Return to the Henry David Thoreau Home Page, or . . . Read the next poem; What's the Railroad to Me?

Anton Chekhov
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Susan Glaspell
Mark Twain
Edgar Allan Poe
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Herman Melville
Stephen Leacock
Kate Chopin
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson