Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/151

Rh our groveling senses may fail to see relieved against the sky, with the pure ether for background.

It would be well if we saw ourselves as in perspective always, impressed with distinct outline on the sky, side by side with the shrubs on the river's brim. So let our life stand to heaven as some fair sun-lit tree against the western horizon, and by sunrise be planted on some eastern hill to glisten in the first rays of the dawn.

June 15, 1851. Saw the first wild rose to-day. The white weed has suddenly appeared, the clover gives whole fields a rich and florid appearance. The rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red as the western sky at evening.

The blue-eyed grass, well-named, looks up to heaven, and the yarrow, with its persistent dry stalks and heads, is now ready to blossom again. The dry stems and heads of last year's tansy stand high above the new green leaves.

I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood-thrush at noon; the ground smells of dry leaves; the heat is oppressive. The bird begins in a low strain, i. e., it first delivers a strain on a lower key, then, a moment after, another a little higher, then another still varied from the others, no two successive strains alike, but either ascending or descending. He confines himself to his few