Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/325

Rh kick the beam, and do all we can to make ourselves heavier or lighter?

Feb. 2, 1853. The Stellaria media [common chickweed] is full of frost-bitten blossoms containing stamens, etc., still, and half-grown buds. Apparently it never rests.

Feb. 2, 1854. Up river on ice to Clematis Brook. Another warm, melting day, like yesterday. You can see some softening and relenting in the sky. Apparently the vapor in the air makes a grosser atmosphere more like that of a summer eve. We go up the Corner road and take the ice at Potter's meadow. The Cliff Hill is nearly bare on the west side, and you hear the rush of melted snow down its side in one place. Here and there are regular round holes in the ice over the meadow two or three feet in diameter where the water appears to be warmer, and where are springs, perchance. Therein in shallow water is seen the cress and one or two other plants still quite fresh. The shade of pines on the snow is in some lights quite blue. We stopped a while under Bittern Cliff, the south side, where it is very warm. There are a few greenish radical leaves to be seen, primrose, Johnswort, strawberry, etc., and spleen wort still green in the clefts. These sunny old gray rocks completely covered with white and gray lichens, and overrun with ivy,