Since I returned from Haverhill not only I find the ducks
are gone but I no longer hear the chill lill of the blue snowbird or the
sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. The robin's
strain is less remarkable.
I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. He is
broad and genial but indefinite; some would say feeble; forever feeling about
vainly in his speech and touching nothing. But this is a very negative account
of him for he thus suggests far more than the sharp and definite practical mind.
The feelers of his thought diverge — such is the breadth of their grasp — not
converge; and in his society almost alone I can express at my leisure with more
or less success my vaguest but most cherished fancy or thought. There are never
any obstacles in the way of our meeting. He has no creed. He is not pledged to
any institution. The sanest man I ever knew; the fewest crotchets after all has
he?
It has occurred to me while I am thinking with pleasure of our day's
intercourse, “Why should I not think aloud to you?” Having each some shingles of
thought well dried we walk and whittle them trying our knives and admiring the
clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. We wade so gently and reverently or
we pull together so smoothly that the fishes of thought are not scared from the
stream but come and go grandly like yonder clouds that float peacefully through
the western sky. When we walk it seems as if the heavens — whose mother-oʻ-pearl
and rainbow tints come and go form and dissolve — and the earth had met together
and righteousness and peace had kissed each other. I have an ally against the
arch-enemy. A blue robed man dwells under the blue concave. The blue sky is a
distant reflection of the azure serenity that looks out from under a human brow.
We walk together like the most innocent children going after wild pinks with
case-knives. Most with whom I endeavor to talk soon fetch up against some
institution or particular way of viewing things theirs not being a universal
view. They will continually bring their own roofs or — what is not much better
— their own narrow skylights between us and the sky when it is the unobstructed
heavens I would view. Get out of the way with your old Jewish cobwebs. Wash
your windows.
Saw on Mr. Emerson's firs several parti-colored warblers or finch
creepers (Sylvia Americana) a small blue and yellow bird somewhat like but
smaller than the indigo-bird; quite tame about the buds of the firs now showing
red; often head downward. Heard no note. He says it has been here a day or two.
At sundown paddled up the river. The pump-like note of a stake-driver from
the fenny place across the Lee meadow.
The greenest and rankest grass as yet is
that in the water along the sides of the river. The hylodes are peeping.
I love
to paddle now at evening when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm.
The rich warble of blackbirds about retiring is loud and incessant not to
mention the notes of numerous other birds. The black willow has started but not
yet the button-bush. Again I think I heard the night-warbler.
Now at starlight that same nighthawk or snipe squeak is heard but no hovering.
The first bat goes suddenly
zigzag overhead through the dusky air; comes out of the dusk and disappears
into it.
That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad' s (which
is occasionally heard) now comes up
from the meadows edge.
I save a floating plank which exhales and imparts to
my hands the rank scent of the muskrats which have squatted on it. I often see
their fresh green excrement on rocks and wood.
Already men are fishing for
pouts.
This has been almost the first warm day; none yet quite so warm. Walking
to the Cliffs this afternoon I noticed on Fair Haven Hill a season stillness as
I looked over the distant budding forest and heard the buzzing of a fly.
H. D.
Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1853
I no longer hear the chill lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. See April 17, 1855 ("The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday.")
I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. See July 4, 1855 ("So we have to spend the day in Boston, —at Athenaeum gallery, Alcott’s, and at the regatta. Lodge at Alcott’s, who is about moving to Walpole."); September 11, 1856 ("Walked over what Alcott calls Farm Hill, east of his house."); January 17, 1860 ("Alcott said well the other day that this was his definition of heaven, 'A place where you can have a little conversation.'")
The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. See May 9, 1857 ("Hear stake-driver"), See also April 24, 1854 (" As I stand still listening . . . I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.”)..
That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad's now comes up from the meadows edge. See May 8. 1857 ("The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light, It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris).. . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance")
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