Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/264

250 hardy duck or two at a distance on the water. As for the singing of birds, the few that have come to us, it is too cold for them to sing and for me to hear. The bluebird's warble comes feeble and frozen to my ear

Over a great many acres the meadows have been cut up into neat squares and other figures by the ice of February, as if ready to be removed; sometimes separated by narrow and deep channels like musk-rat paths, but oftener the edges have been raised and apparently stretched, and settling have not fallen into their places exactly, but lodged on their neighbors. Even yet you see cakes of ice surmounted by a shell of meadow-crust which has preserved them, while all around is bare meadow.

March 28, 1856. I think to say to my friend, There is but one interval between us. You are on one side of it, I on the other. You know as much about it as I, how wide, how impassable it is. I will endeavor not to blame you. Do not blame me. There is nothing to be said about it. Recognize the truth, and pass over the intervals that are bridged.

Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to this side the mountains, yours to that. For a long time you have appeared further and further off to me. I see that you will at length dissappeardisappear [sic] altogether. For a season my path