Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/92

78 town and country is now so still, no rattle of wagons nor even jingle of sleigh bells, every tread being as with woolen feet. In such a day as this, the crowing of a cock is heard very far and distinctly. There are a few sounds still which never fail to affect me, the notes of a wood thrush and the sound of a vibrating chord. These affect me as many sounds once did often, and as almost all should. The strain of the æolian harp and of the wood thrush are the truest and loftiest preachers that I know now left on this earth. I know of no missionaries to us heathen comparable to them. They, as it were, lift us up in spite of ourselves. They intoxicate and charm us. Where was that strain mixed, into which this world was dropped, but as a lump of sugar, to sweeten the draught? I would be drunk, drunk, drunk, dead drunk to this world with it forever. He that hath ears, let him hear. The contact of sound with a human ear whose hearing is pure and unimpaired is coincident with an ecstasy. Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to a healthy ear. The hearing of it makes men brave. These things alone remind me of my immortality, which is else a fable. As I hear, I realize and see clearly what at other times I only dimly remember. I get the value of the earth's extent and the sky s depth. It gives me the