Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/125

Rh within call,—the angel of the spring! Fair and innocent, yet the offspring of the earth. The color of the sky, above, and of the subsoil, beneath, suggesting what sweet and innocent melody, terrestrial melody, may have its birthplace between the sky and the ground.

March 11, 1842. We can only live healthily the life the gods assign us. I must receive my life as passively as the willow leaf that flutters over the brook. I must not be for myself, but God's work, and that is always good. I will wait the breezes patiently, and grow as they shall determine. My fate cannot but be grand so. We may live the life of a plant or an animal without living an animal life. This constant and universal content of the animal comes of resting quietly in God's palm. I feel as if I could at any time resign my life and the responsibility into God's hands, and become as innocent and free from care as a plant or stone.

My life! my life! why will you linger? Are the years short and the months of no account? Can God afford that I should forget him? Is he so indifferent to my career? Can heaven be postponed with no more ado? Why were my ears given to hear those everlasting strains which haunt my life, and yet to be profaned by these perpetual dull sounds? Why, God, did you include me in your great scheme?