P. M. — To Walden.
The sugar maple sap flows, and for aught I know is as early as the red.
I think I may say that the snow has been not less than a foot deep on a level in open land until to-day, since January 6th, about eleven weeks. It probably begins to be less, about this date. The bare ground begins to appear where the snow is worn in the street. It has been steadily melting since March 13th, the thermometer rising daily to 40 and 45 at noon, but no rain.
The east side of the Deep Cut is nearly bare, as is the railroad itself, and, on the driest parts of the sandy slope, I go looking for Cicindela, -- to see it run or fly amid the sere blackberry vines, -- some life which the warmth of the dry sand under the spring sun has called forth; but I see none.
I am reassured and reminded that I am the heir of eternal inheritances which are inalienable, when I feel the warmth reflected from this sunny bank, and see the yellow sand and the reddish subsoil, and hear some dried leaves rustle and the trickling of melting snow in some sluiceway.
The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also. How many springs I have had this same experience! I am encouraged, for I recognize this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself.
The first places which I observe to be bare now, though the snow is generally so deep still, are the steep hillsides facing the south, as the side of the Cut (though it looks not south exactly) and the slope of Heywood’s Peak toward the pond, also under some trees in a meadow (there is less snow there on account of eddy, and apparently the tree absorbs heat), or a ridge in the same place.
Almost the whole of the steep hillside on the north of Walden is now bare and dry and warm, though fenced in with ice and snow. It has attracted partridges, four of which whir away on my approach.
There the early sedge is exposed, and, looking closer, I observe that it has been sheared off close down, when green, far and wide, and the fallen withered tops are little handfuls of hay by their sides, which have been covered by the snow and sometimes look as if they had served as nests for the mice, —for their green droppings are left in them abundantly, yet not such plain nests as in the grainfield last spring, — probably the Mus leucopus, — and the Wintergreen and the sere pennyroyal still retain some fragrance.
As I return on the railroad, at the crossing beyond the shanty, hearing a rustling, I see a striped squirrel amid the sedge on the bare east bank, twenty feet distant. After observing me a few moments, as I stand perfectly still between the rails, he runs straight up to within three feet of me, out of curiosity; then, after a moment’s pause, and looking up to my face, turns back and finally crosses the railroad. All the red is on his rump and hind quarters. When running he carries his tail erect, as he scratched up the snowy bank.
Now then the steep south hillsides begin to be bare, and the early sedge and sere, but still fragrant, penny royal and rustling leaves are exposed, and you see where the mice have sheared off the sedge and also made nests of its top during the winter. There, too, the partridges resort, and perhaps you hear the bark of a striped squirrel, and see him scratch toward his hole, rustling the leaves.
For all the inhabitants of nature are attracted by this bare and dry spot, as well as you.
The muskrat-houses were certainly very few and small last summer, and the river has been remarkably low up to this time, while, the previous fall, they were very numerous and large, and in the succeeding winter the river rose remarkably high. So much for the muskrat sign.
The bare ground just begins to appear in a few spots in the road in middle of the town.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1856
I am reassured and reminded that I am the heir of eternal inheritances which are inalienable, when I feel the warmth reflected from this sunny bank,. . . How many springs I have had this same experience! See March 15, 1852 ("This afternoon I throw off my outside coat. A mild spring day. The air is full of bluebirds. The ground almost entirely bare . . .I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air, liquid with the bluebirds' warble. My life partakes of infinity.")
The eternity which I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also . . . for I recognize this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself. See November 10, 1854 ("Nature is prepared for an infinity of springs yet."); November 8, 1860 ("Consider how persevering Nature is, and how much time she has to work in, though she works slowly.")
The eternity
that I detect in Nature
I see in myself.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The eternity I detect in Nature
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024
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