Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/54

44 Some poet must sing in praise of the bulbous Arethusa.

The lupine is now in its glory. It is the more important, because it occurs in such extensive patches, even an acre or more together, and of such a pleasing variety of colors, purple, pink or lilac, and white, especially with the sun on it, when the transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. It paints a whole hill-side with its blue, making such a field (if not meadow) as Proserpine might have wandered in. Its leaf was made to be covered with dew-drops. I am quite excited by this prospect of blue flowers in clumps, with narrow intervals, such a profusion of the heavenly, the Elysian color, as if these were the Elysian Fields That is the value of the lupine. The earth is blued with it. Yet a third of a mile distant I do not detect their color on the hill-side. Perchance because it is the color of the air. It is not distinct enough. You may have passed along here a fort night ago, and the hill-side was comparatively barren, but now you come, and these glorious redeemers appear to have flashed out here all at once. Who plants the seeds of lupines in the barren soil? Who watereth the lupines in the fields?

De Kay of the New York Report says the bream &quot;is of no value as an article of food, but is often caught for amusement.&quot; I think it is the sweetest fish in our river.