Within the circuit of this plodding
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the
Or anemone, when the spring strews
By some meandering rivulet, which
The best philosophy untrue that
But to console man for his grievancesI have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer
Some unrecorded beam slanted
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and
Its own memorial,—purling at its
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made
To go upon my winter's task again."Natural History of Massachusetts"
