112 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
Will you not make me a partner at last ? Did 
it need there should be a conscious material ? 
My friend ! my friend ! I’d speak so frank to 
thee that thou wouldst pray me to keep back 
some part of it, for fear I robbed myself. To 
address thee, delights me, there is such clear¬ 
ness in the delivery. I am delivered of my tale, 
which, told to strangers, still would linger in 
my life as if untold, or doubtful how it ran. 
March 11, 1854. Fair weather after three 
rainy days. Air full of birds, — bluebirds, song- 
sparrows, chickadees (phebe-notes), and black¬ 
birds. Song-sparrows toward the water with 
at least two kinds or variations of their strain 
quick 
hard to imitate, — ozit , ozit , ozit , psa te te te 
tete ter twe ter , is one. The other began chip , 
chip che we , etc., etc. 
Bluebirds’ warbling curls in elms. 
Shall the earth be regarded as a graveyard, a 
necropolis merely, and not also as a granary 
filled with the seeds of life, fertile compost, not 
exhausted sand ? Is not its fertility increased 
by decay ? 
On Tuesday, the 7th, I heard the first song- 
sparrow chirp, and saw it flit silently from 
alder to alder. This pleasant morning, after 
three days’ rain and mist, they generally burst 
forth into sprayey song from the low trees along 
the river. The development of their song is 
