Nineteenth century was a period of nation-building for the Americans. Thus, most of the nineteenth century American literature was preoccupied with the meaning of America, the destiny of America, and the promise of America. But as industrialism gathered speed, it squeezed out the consciousness of all, and the new society’s dynamism filled many with dread. Amidst this society in a flux, emerged an American sage and seer Ralph Waldo Emerson. He spoke to a nineteenth century that was ready for an emphasis on individualism and responsive to a new optimism that linked God, Nature, and Man into a magnificent cosmos. Emerson’s Nature (1836) was the first definitive statement of his philosophical perspective. The ideas which Emerson endorsed in Nature found explicit moral and practical application in Thoreau, which he records in Walden: Or, Life in the Woods (1854). This paper examines Emerson’s Nature and Thoreau’s Walden which present two vital visions concerning Nature: first, the spiritual vision of envisioning the earth as a sacred being and the belief that a Nature-centered consciousness should take hold upon the earth; and second, the environmental vision of living in balance or harmony with nature, i.e., truly adapting to the needs of nature. In modern parlance, it means adopting a ‘bioregionalist’ attitude, i.e., living within the bounty provided by a place and not altering a place to suit our tastes.