Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/180

170 This probably for warmth, dryness, and lightness. So the carpenter has learned to sometimes build double walls.

7 To Cliffs. Pyrolas are beginning to blossom. The four-leaved loosestrife. The longest days in the year have now come. The sun goes down now (this moment) behind Watatic, from the Cliffs. St. John's-wort is beginning to blossom.

I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. Apollo tending the herds of Admetus. How cultivated, how sweet and glorious is music! Men have brought this art to great perfection, the art of modulating sound, by long practice, since the world began. What superiority over the rude harmony of savages! There is something glorious and flower-like in it. What a contrast this evening melody with the occupations of the day. It is perhaps the most admirable accomplishment of man.

June 18, 1853. 4 By boat to Nashawtuck, to Azalea or Pinxter Spring. Almost all birds appear to join the early morning chorus before sunrise on the roost, the matin hymn. I hear now the robin, the chip-bird, the blackbird, the martin, etc., but I see none flying, or at least only one wing in the air not yet illumined by the sun. As I was going up the hill, I was surprised to see rising above the June