Pay for your victuals with poetry.

February 27

P. M. — To Cliffs.

Though it was a dry, powdery snow-storm yesterday, the sun is now so high that the snow is soft and sticky this afternoon. The sky, too, is soft to look at, and the air to feel on my cheek. 

Health makes the poet, or sympathy with nature, a good appetite for his food, which is constantly renewing him, whetting his senses. Pay for your victuals, then, with poetry; give back life for life.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1859

Though it was a dry, powdery snow-storm yesterday, the sun is now so high. See February 13, 1859 ("The old ice is covered with a dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, as I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets.")

The sky, too, is soft to look at, and the air to feel on my cheek. See February 18, 1855 ("Now for the first time decidedly there is something spring-suggesting in the air and light."); March 10, 1853 ("Something analogous to the thawing of the ice seems to have taken place in the air.") and note to March 2, 1854 ("What produces the peculiar softness of the air?") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: Change in the Air

How quickly the snow feels the warmer wind!

December 10.

P. M. —-To Nut Meadow.

Weather warmer; snow softened. 

See a large flock of snow buntings (quite white against woods, at any rate), though it is quite warm. 

Snow-fleas in paths; first I have seen. 

Hear the small woodpecker’s whistle; not much else; only crows and partridges else, and chickadees. 

How quickly the snow feels the warmer wind! The crust which was so firm and rigid is now suddenly softened and there is much water in the road.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 10, 1854