A SONG OF THE WINTER WOODS 77 



thoughts within us as the happier, softer sum- 

 mer never can. The thoughts of youth are long, 

 long thoughts; solemn, serious thoughts very 

 often, that find themselves at home in the silence 

 and dim gray twilight of the winter woods. The 

 leafless trees, the flattened, faded marsh, the wind- 

 swept hills, how bare and simple and real they 

 are! how natural and frank and honest! It is 

 easy to see them whole, easy to understand them, 

 easy to believe and love them. 



Summer and winter I have tramped the woods. 

 I have brought back many a happy observation, 

 many a rare flower, many a partridge and fat 

 'possum, many a rabbit and muskrat. But none 

 of these was the best that I got from my tramps. 

 The best things I never carried home in my hands, 

 1)ut in my heart; and when my hands were empty, 

 as often they were in the winter, my heart as 

 often was full. 



In the summer there would be so much to see, 

 so much to carry home in my hands, that I often 

 had no time to think of anything to put into my 

 heart. But in the winter, what had I except my 

 thoughts, those long, long thoughts! And where 

 could I carry them but in my heart ? 



You ask me what they were? and what I did 



