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 searching 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-sparrows 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 Hey wood'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 scratching amid the leaves in the swamp, without seeing them, and also saw many indistinctly.
