April at Work 63 



of interest, finds pleasure in the humble beginnings 

 and hints, such as the incipient fronds of ferns in 

 the clefts of the ledges, the herb-robert s delicate, 

 reddish leaves, as beautiful as flowers, the first 

 leaves of honest saxifrage or bold corydalis or 

 gypsy columbine. Small things are as interesting 

 as large ones, and mean as much in the everlasting 

 mystery of creation and resurrection. 



The waters now dash in splendid cataracts down 

 many a precipice of basaltic trap that will be only 

 dry rock a month hence ; and one may lie on a 

 sun-warmed rock, and watch the birds as they dart 

 and drop and chatter, and call and fling out bursts 

 of hopeful song, or see here and there tiny whirl 

 winds lift a spiral twist of brown leaves far above 

 the trees they fell from in the fall, and enjoy other 

 privileges that the forest foliage will presently re 

 strict. 



On the mountain s peak, one of these fresh 

 spring mornings, the earth seems deliciously 

 slumbrous, as if at the verge of awakening, but 

 enjoying its morning naps, turning itself therein, 

 and saying like the sluggard in the Proverbs : &quot; Yet 

 a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the 

 hands to sleep.&quot; There lies to the southward a 

 mist from the seething snows, clouding the hori 

 zon ; and all around indeed this melting vapour 

 rises ; yet Greylock seems so near as if one might 



