Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/379

1841] I've felt within my inmost soul

Such cheerful morning news,

In the horizon of my mind

I've seen such morning hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,

When the first birds awake,

Is heard within some silent wood

Where they the small twigs break;

Or in the eastern skies is seen

Before the sun appears,

Foretelling of the summer heats

Which far away he bears.

P. M. Walden.—I seem to discern the very form of the wind when, blowing over the hills, it falls in broad flakes upon the surface of the pond, this subtle element obeying the same law with the least subtle. As it falls it spreads itself like a mass of lead dropped upon an anvil. I cannot help being encouraged by this blithe activity in the elements in these degenerate days of men. Who hears the rippling of the rivers will not utterly despair of anything. The wind in the wood yonder sounds like an incessant waterfall, the water dashing and roaring among rocks.

[Dec.] 13. Monday. We constantly anticipate repose. Yet it surely can only be the repose that is in entire and healthy activity. It must be a repose without rust. What is leisure but opportunity for more complete and