134 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
Past and Future. Would the face of nature be 
so serene and beautiful if man’s destiny were 
not equally so ? 
What am I good for now, who am still search¬ 
ing after high things, but to hear and tell the 
news, to bring wood and water, and count how 
many eggs the hens lay ? In the meanwhile 
I expect my life to begin. I will not aspire 
longer. I will see what it is I would be after. 
I will be unanimous. 
March 14, 1854. Great concert of song-spar¬ 
rows in willows and alders along swamp brook 
by river. Hardly hear a distinct strain. Couples 
chasing each other, and some tree sparrows 
with them. 
p. M. To Great Meadows. Counted over 
forty robins with my glass in the meadow north 
of Sleepy Hollow on the grass and on the snow. 
A large company of fox-colored sparrows in 
Heywood’s maple swamp close by. I heard 
their loud, sweet, canary-like whistle thirty or 
forty rods off, sounding richer than anything 
else yet; some on the bushes, singing twee twee 
twa twa twa ter tweer tweer twa . This is the 
scheme of it only, there being no dental grit. 
They were shy, flitting before me, and I heard a 
slight susurrus where many were busily scratch¬ 
ing amid the leaves in the swamp, without 
seeing them, and also saw many indistinctly. 
