molded to express the shades of meaning, when sesquipedalian words, long since cut and apparently dried and drawn to mill, not yet to the dictionary lumber-yard, put forth a fringe of green sprouts here and there along in the angles of their sugared bark, their very bulk insuring some sap remaining; some florid suckers they sustain at least. These words, split into shingles and laths, will supply poets for ages to come. A man can't ask properly for a piece of bread and butter without some animal spirits. A child can't cry without them.
p. m. To Heywood's Meadow. The telegraph harp sounds more commonly now that westerly winds prevail. The winds of winter are too boisterous, too violent or rude, and do not strike it at the right angle when I walk, so that it becomes one of the spring sounds. The ice went out of Walden this forenoon; of Flint's Pond day before yesterday, I have no doubt.
The buds of the shad-blossom look green. The crimson-starred flowers of the hazel begin to peep out, though the catkins have not opened. The alders are almost generally in full bloom, and a very handsome and interesting show they make with their graceful tawny pendants inclining to yellow. They shake like ear-drops in the wind, almost the first completed ornaments with whieh the new year decks herself.
