Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/151

1839] The western sighs adown the slope,

Or 'mid the rustling leaves doth grope,

Laden with news from Californ',

Whatever transpired hath since morn,

How wags the world by brier and brake,

From hence to Athabasca lake.

Feb. 8. When the poetic frenzy seizes us, we run and scratch with our pen, delighting, like the cock, in the dust we make, but do not detect where the jewel lies, which perhaps we have in the meantime cast to a distance, or quite covered up again.

Feb. 9. It takes a man to make a room silent.

Feb. 10.

When the world grows old by the chimney-side,

Then forth to the youngling rocks I glide,

Where over the water, and over the land,

The bells are booming on either hand.

Now up they go ding, then down again dong,

And awhile they swing to the same old song,

And the metal goes round at a single bound,

A-lulling the fields with its measured sound,

Till the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom

As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.