2 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



spring up as fully in one's heart after he has made 

 the circuit of his own field as after returning from 

 a voyage round the world. I sit here amid the 

 junipers of the Hudson, with purpose every year 

 to go to Florida, or to the West Indies, or to the 

 Pacific coast, yet the seasons pass and I am still 

 loitering, with a half-defined suspicion, perhaps, 

 that, if I remain quiet and keep a sharp lookout, 

 these countries will come to me. I may stick it 

 out yet, and not miss much after all. The great 

 trouble is for Mohammed to know when the moun- 

 tain really comes to him. Sometimes a rabbit or 

 a jay or a little warbler brings the woods to my 

 door. A loon on the river, and the Canada lakes 

 are here; the sea-gulls and the fish hawk bring the 

 sea; the call of the wild gander at night, what does 

 it suggest? and the eagle flapping by, or floating 

 along on a raft of ice, does not he bring the moun- 

 tain? One spring morning five swans flew above 

 my barn in single file, going northward, an ex- 

 press train bound for Labrador. It was a more 

 exhilarating sight than if I had seen them in their 

 native haunts. They made a breeze in my mind, 

 like a noble passage in a poem. How gently their 

 great wings flapped; how easy to fly when spring 

 gives the impulse! On another occasion I saw a 

 line of fowls, probably swans, going northward, at 

 such a height that they appeared like a faint, wav- 

 ing black line against the sky. They must have 

 been at an altitude of two or three miles. I was 

 looking intently at the clouds to see which way 



