Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/324

314 the evening exhibits in the still rear of day the beauty which through morning and noon escaped me. When we are oppressed by the heat and turmoil of the noon, let us remember that the sun which scorches us with brazen beams is gilding the hills of morning, and awaking the woodland choirs for other men.

We will have a dawn and noon and serene sunset in ourselves.

What we call the gross atmosphere of evening is the accumulated deed of the day, which absorbs the rays of beauty, and shows more richly than the naked promise of the dawn. By earnest toil in the heat of the noon, let us get ready a rich western blaze against the evening of our lives.

The sky is delighted with strains [of music] which the connoisseur rejects. It seems to say &quot;Now is this my own earth.&quot; In music are the centripetal and centrifugal forces. The universe only needed to hear a divine harmony that every star might fall into its proper place and assume a true sphericity.

July 3, 1852. The Chimaphila umbellata, winter-green, must have been in blossom some time. The back side of its petals, &quot;cream-colored, tinged with purple,&quot; which is turned toward the beholder, while the face is toward the earth, is the handsomer. It is a very pretty