Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/161

Rh redeemer. It always brings a special and a general message to me from the highest. Day before yesterday I looked at the mangled and blackened bodies of men which had been blown up by powder, and felt that the lives of men are not innocent, and that there was an avenging power in nature. To-day I hear this immortal melody while the west wind is blowing balmily on my cheek and a roseate sunset seems to be preparing.

As I climbed the cliff, I paused in the sun and sat on a dry rock, dreaming. I thought of those summery hours, when time is tinged with eternity, runs into it, and becomes of one stuff with it, how much, how perhaps all that is best in our experience in middle life, may be resolved into the memory of our youth! Pulling up the Johnswort on the face of the cliff, I am surprised to see the signs of unceasing growth about the roots, fresh shoots two inches long, white with red leafetsleaflets [sic], and all the radical part quite green. The leaves of the crowfoot also are quite green, and carry me forward to spring. I dig one up with a stick, and pulling it to pieces, I find deep in the centre of the plant, just beneath the ground, surrounded by all the tender leaves that are to precede it, the blossom bud about half as big as the head of a pin, perfectly white. (?) (I open one next day, and it is