Page:Excursions (1863) Thoreau.djvu/66

58 In the brooks is heard the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice, floating with various speed, full of content and promise, and where the water gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold conversation in an undertone. Every rill is a channel for the juices of the meadow. In the ponds the ice cracks with a merry and inspiriting din, and down the larger streams is whirled grating hoarsely, and crashing its way along, which was so lately a highway for the woodman's team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees anxiously inspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede with the ice, and save the treasury.

The river swelleth more and more,

Like some sweet influence stealing o'er

The passive town; and for a while

Each tussuck makes a tiny isle,

Where, on some friendly Ararat,

Resteth the weary water-rat.

No ripple shows Musketaquid,

Her very current e'en is hid,

As deepest souls do calmest rest,

When thoughts are swelling in the breast,