WOOD THRUSH 381 



his heart and life and soul, of pure and unmatchable 

 melody, and then he pauses and gives the hearer and 

 himself time to digest this, and then another and another 

 at suitable intervals. Men talk of the rich song of other 

 birds, — the thrasher, mockingbird, nightingale. But 

 I doubt, I doubt. They know not what they say ! There 

 is as great an interval between the thrasher and the 

 wood thrush as between Thomson's " Seasons " and 

 Homer. The sweetness of the day crystallizes in this 

 morning coolness. 



June 22, 1853. As I come over the hill, I hear the 

 wood thrush singing his evening lay. This is the only 

 bird whose note affects me like music, affects the flow 

 and tenor of my thought, my fancy and imagination. 

 It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It is a med- 

 icative draught to my soul. It is an elixir to my eyes 

 and a fountain of youtli to all my senses. It changes all 

 hours to an eternal morning. It banishes all trivialness. 

 It reinstates me in my dominion, makes me the lord of 

 creation, is chief musician of my court. This minstrel 

 sings in a time, a heroic age, with which no event in 

 the village can be contemporary. How can they be con- 

 temporary when only the latter is temporary at all? 

 How can the infinite and eternal be contemporary with 

 the finite and temporal? So there is something in the 

 music of the cow-bell, something sweeter and more 

 nutritious, than in the milk which the farmers drink. 

 This thrush's song is a ranz des vetches to me. I long 

 for wildness, a nature which I cannot put my foot 

 through, woods where the wood thrush forever sings, 

 where the hours are early morning ones, and there is 



