VESPER SPARROW; BAY- WING 287 



(jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably differ- 

 ent, but a second also sings the above. Two on different 

 posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending 

 with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind. 



June 23, 1856. Bay-wings sang morning and even- 

 ing about R.'s house,* often sitting on a bean-pole and 

 dropping down and running and singing on the bare 

 ground amid the potatoes. Its note somewhat like 

 Come^ here here, there there, — quick quick quick (fast), 

 — or I ^m gone. 



May 12, 1857. While dropping beans in the garden 

 at Texas ^ just after sundown (May 13th), I hear from 

 across the fields the note of the bay-wing. Come here 

 here there there quick quick quick or I 'm gone, (which 

 I have no doubt sits on some fence-post or rail there), 

 and it instantly translates me from the sphere of my 

 work and repairs all the world that we jointly inhabit. 

 It reminds me of so many country afternoons and even- 

 ings when this bird's strain was heard far over the 

 fields, as I pursued it from field to field. The spirit of 

 its earth-song, of its serene and true philosophy, was 

 breathed into me, and I saw the world as through a 

 glass, as it lies eternally. Some of its aboriginal con- 

 tentment, even of its domestic felicity, possessed me. 

 What he suggests is permanently true. As the bay-wing 

 sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. In 

 the beginning God heard his song and pronounced it 

 good, and hence it has endured. It reminded me of 



1 [Mr. Daniel Ricketson's honse in New Bedford, where Thoreaa was 



visiting.] 



2 [See note on p. 280.] 



