I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air. The cock-crowing and even the telegraph harp prophesy it, even though the ground is for the most part covered by snow.
I am too late by a day or two for the sand foliage on the east side of the Deep Cut. The frost is partly come out of this bank, and it is become dry again in the sun. It is glorious to see the soil again, here where a shovel, perchance, will enter it and find no frost.
I now hear at a distance the sound of the laborer's sledge on the rails. The very sound of men's work reminds, advertises, me of the coming of spring.
Observe the poplar's swollen buds and the brightness of the willow's bark. It is a natural resurrection, an experience of immortality.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 24, 1852
I now hear at a distance the sound of the laborer's sledge on the rails. See February 16, 1855 ("Sounds sweet and musical through this air . . . striking on the rails at a distance.”); April 9, 1853 ("The sound of the laborers' striking the iron rails of the railroad with their sledges, as in the sultry days of summer, -- resounds, as it were, from the hazy sky as a roof, -- a more confined and . . . domestic sound echoing along between the earth and the low heavens.”)
Observe the poplar's swollen buds and the brightness of the willow's bark. See February 24, 1855 ("The brightening of the willows or of osiers, —that is a season in the spring, showing that the dormant sap is awakened. . . . You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them.”)
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