140 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
tended with no more glorious results than I 
witness ? The air is a velvet cushion against 
which I press my ear 8 I go forth to make new 
demands on life. I wish to begin this summer 
well, to do something in it worthy of it and of 
me, to transcend my daily routine and that of 
my townsmen, to have my immortality now, in 
the quality of my daily life, to pay the greatest 
price, the greatest tax, of: any man in Concord, 
and enjoy the most! ! I will give all I am for 
my nobility. I will pay all my days for my suc¬ 
cess. I pray that the life of this spring and 
summer may ever lie fair in my memory. May 
I dare as I have never done. May I persevere 
as I have never done. May I purify myself 
anew as with fire and water, soul and body. 
May my melody not be wanting to the season. 
May I gird myself to be a hunter of the beau¬ 
tiful, that naught escape me. May I attain to 
a youth never attained. I am eager to report 
the glory of the universe. May I be worthy to 
do it, to have got through with regarding hu¬ 
man values so as not to be distracted from re¬ 
garding divine values. It is reasonable that a 
man should be something worthier at the end 
of the year than he was at the beginning. 
Yesterday’s rain, in which I was glad to be 
drenched, has advanced the spring, settled the 
ways, and the old foot-path and the brook and 
