Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/108

98 The woods are about as destitute of inhabitants at night as the streets. In both there will be some night walkers. There are but few wild creatures to seek their prey. The greater part of its inhabitants have retired to rest.

Ah, that life that I have known! How hard it is to remember what is most memorable. We remember how we itched, not how our hearts beat. I can sometimes recall to mind the quality, the immortality of my youthful life, but in memory is the only relation to it.

I hear the night-warbler breaking out as in his dreams, made so from the first for some mysterious reason.

Our spiritual side takes a more distinct form now, like our shadow which we see accompanying us.

I do not know but I feel less vigor at night,—my legs will not carry me so far, as if the night were less favorable to muscular exertion, weakened us somewhat, as darkness turns plants pale,—but perhaps my experience is to be referred to my being already exhausted by the day; yet sometimes, after a hard day's work, I have found myself unexpectedly vigorous. I have never tried the experiment fairly.

Only the harvest and hunter's moons are famous, but I think that each full moon deserves to be, and has its own character, well-marked. One might be called the midsummer night moon.