Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/58

34 Scarce bear their burden, and the floods Feel arctic winter stay their flow. Pile on the firewood, melt the cold, Spare nothing, etc.

But soon, changing my tune, and with a cheerfuller note, I'll say,—

No longer the flock huddles up in the stall, the plowman bends over the fire, No longer frost whitens the meadow; But the goddess of love, while the moon shines above, Sets us dancing in light and in shadow.

When Robin Redbreast brings back the springtime, I trust that you will lay your school-duties aside, cast off care, and venture to be gay now and then; roaming with me in the woods, or climbing the Fairhaven cliffs,—or else, in my boat on Walden, let the water kiss your hand, or gaze at your image in the wave.

Bulwer is to me a name unknown,—one of the unnoticed crowd, attracting neither blame nor praise. To be sure, I hold any one in some esteem who is helpless in the grasp of the writing demon.

Does not the image of the Lexington afire trouble your dreams? But we may not, like the superstitious mob, blame Vulcan or Neptune,—neither fire nor water was in fault. Nature