Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/156

146. Have not all streams this contrast more or less,—on the one hand eating into the bank, on the other depositing their sediment?

The year is in its manhood now. The very river looks warm, and there is none of that light celestial blue seen in far reaches in the spring.

I see fields a mile distant reddened with sorrel.

The very sight of distant water is refreshing, though a bluish steam appears to rise on it. How refreshing the sound of the smallest waterfall in hot weather. I sit by that on Clematis Brook, and listen to its music. The very sight of this half stagnant pond-hole drying up and leaving bare mud, with the pollywogs and turtles making off in it, is agreeable and encouraging to behold, as if it contained the very seeds of life, the liquor, rather, boiled down. The foulest water will bubble purely. They speak to our blood, even these stagnant, slimy pools. Even this water has, no doubt, its falls nobler than Montmorenci, grander than Niagara, in the course of its circulations.

Cattle walk along now in a brook or ditch for coolness, lashing their tails, and browse the edges; or they stand concealed for shade amid thick bushes. How perfectly acquainted they are with man.

I hear the scream of a great hawk sailing