SPRING THOUGHTS. 



ND now there is such a 

 fiddling in the woods, such 

 a viol creaking of bough on 

 bough that you would 

 think music was being 

 born again as in the days of Orpheus. 

 Orpheus and Apollo are certainly there 

 taking lessons ; aye, and the Jay and 

 Blackbird, too, learn now where they 

 stole their " thunder. " They are 



perforce, silent, meditating new strains. 



* * * * 



Methinks I would share every 

 creature's suffering for the sake of its 

 experience and joy. The Song Spar- 

 row and the transient Fox-colored 

 Sparrow, have they brought me no 

 message this year ? Is not the coming 

 of the Fox-colored Sparrow something 

 more earnest and significant than I 

 have dreamed of? Have I heard what 

 this tiny passenger has to say while it 

 flits thus from tree to tree ? God did 

 not make this world in jest, no, nor in 

 indifference. These migratory Spar- 

 rows all bear messages that concern 

 my life. I love the birds and beasts 

 because they are mythologically in 

 earnest. I see the Sparrow chirps, and 

 flits, and sings adequately to the great 

 design of the universe, that man does 

 not communicate with it, understand 

 its language, because he is not alone 

 with nature. I reproach myself 

 because I have regarded with in- 

 difference the passage of the birds. 

 I have thought them no better than I. 



I hear the note of a Bobolink con- 

 cealed in the top of an apple tree 

 behind me. Though this bird's full 

 strain is ordinarily somewhat trivial, 

 this one appears to be meditating a 

 strain as yet unheard in meadow or 

 orchard. He is just touching the 

 strings of his theorbo, his glassichord, 

 his water organ, and one or two notes 

 globe themselves and fall in liquid 

 bubbles from his tuning throat. It is 

 as if he touched his harp within a vase 

 of liquid melody, and when he lifted 

 it out the notes fell like bubbles from 

 the trembling strings. Methinks they 

 are the most liquidly sweet and 

 melodious sounds I ever heard. They 

 are as refreshing to my ear as the first 

 distant tinkling and gurgling of a rill 

 to a thirsty man. Oh, never advance 

 farther in your art ; never let us hear 

 your full strain, sir ! But away he 

 launches, and the meadow is all be- 

 spattered with melody. Its notes fall 

 with the apple blossoms in the orchard. 

 The very divinest part of his strain 

 drops from his overflowing breast 

 singidtim^ in globes of melody. It is 

 the foretaste of such strains as never 

 fell on mortal ears, to hear which we 

 should rush to our doors and contribute 

 all that we possess and are. Or it 

 seemed as if in that vase full of melody 

 some notes sphered themselves, and 

 from time to time bubbled up to the 

 surface, and were with difficulty 

 repressed. 



— Thoreau. 



185 



