Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/24

 To our neighbors who have risen in mist and rain we tell of a clear sunrise and the singing of birds, as some traditionary mythus. We look back to those fresh but now remote hours, as to the dawn of time, when a solid and blooming health reigned, and every deed was simple and heroic." Again, at the opening of "Wednesday," the sound of the farmyard chanticleer leads to one of those irregular poems that Thoreau often wrote, but seldom printed in full, though he liked to quote from them an occasional stanza or a couplet.

Upon the bank at early dawn
 * I hear the cocks proclaim the day,

Though the moon shines securely on,
 * As if her course they could not stay.

The stars withhold their shining not,
 * Or singly or in scattered crowds,

But seem like Parthian arrows shot
 * By yielding Night mid the advancing clouds.

Far in the east the larum rings,
 * As if a wakeful host were there;

And now its early clarion sings
 * To warn us sluggard knights beware.

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