Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/208

126 sung as freshly as if it had been the first morning of creation, and had for background to their song an un trodden wilderness, stretching through many a Carolina and Mexico of the soul. March 6. There is no delay in answering great ques tions; for them all things have an answer ready. The Pythian priestess gave her answers instantly, and oft- times before the questions were fairly propounded. Great topics do not wait for past or future to be deter mined, but the state of the crops or Brighton market no bird concerns itself about. March 8. The wind shifts from northeast and east to northwest and south, and every icicle which has tin kled on the meadow grass so long trickles down its stem and seeks its water level unerringly with a million comrades. In the ponds the ice cracks with a busy and inspiriting din and down the larger streams is whirled, grating hoarsely and crashing its way along, which was so lately a firm field for the woodman's team and the fox, sometimes with the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees inspect the bridges and causeways, as if by mere eye-force to intercede with the ice and save the treasury. In the brooks the slight grating sound of small cakes of ice, floating with various speed, is full of content and promise, and where the water gurgles under a natural bridge, you may hear these hasty rafts hold