Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/336

322 up, except the scattered twigs and pine plumes. I can see every track distinctly where the teamster drove his oxen and loaded his sled, and even the tracks of his dog, in the moonlight, and plainly to write this.—The moonlight now is very splendid in the untouched pine woods above the Cliffs, alternate patches of shade and light. The light has almost the brightness of sunlight, the fulgor. The stems of the trees are more obvious than by day, being simple black against the moonlight and the snow. The sough of the breeze in the pine tops sounds far away like the surf on a distant shore, and for all sound beside, there is only the rattling or chafing of little dry twigs, perchance a little snow falling on them, or they are so brittle that they break and fall with the motion of the trees.—My owl sounds hoo-hoo-hoo—hoo.

The landscape covered with snow seen from these Cliffs, encased in snowy armor two feet thick, gleaming in the moonlight and of spotless white, who can believe that this is the habitable globe. The scenery is wholly arctic. Fair Haven Pond is a Baffin's Bay. Man must have ascertained the limits of the winter before he ventured to withstand it, and not migrate with the birds. No cultivated field, no house, no candle. All is as dreary as the shores of the frozen ocean. I can tell where there is wood