Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/281

Rh When in rare moments we strive wholly with one consent, which we call a yearning, we may not hope that our work will stand in any artist's gallery.

July 1, 1852. 9.30 To Sherman's Bridge by land and water. One object, to see the white lilies in bloom. The Trifolium arvense, or rabbit's foot clover, is just beginning to show its color. The mulleins generally now begin to show their pure yellow in roadside fields, and the white cymes of the elder are conspicuous on the edges of the copses. I perceive the meadow fragrance still. Roses are in their prime now, growing amid huckleberry bushes, ferns, and sweet ferns, especially about some dry pond hole, some paler, some more red. It would seem they must have bloomed in vain while only wild men roamed, yet now they adorn only the pasture of these cows.—How well-behaved are cows! When they approach me reclining in the shade, from curiosity, or to receive a wisp of grass, or to share the shade, or to lick the dog held up, like a calf, though just now they ran at him to toss him, they do not obtrude; their company is acceptable, for they can endure the longest pause. They have not to be entertained. They occupy the most eligible lots in the town. I love to see some pure white about them. It suggests the more neatness.