DAFFODILS. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Continuous as the stars that shine The waves beside them danced; but they A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed -and gazed-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, WALDEN POND. HENRY DAVID THOREAU. HENRY DAVID THOREAU was born in Concord, Mass., on the 12th of July, 1817. His father was of French descent, and his mother was the daughter of a New England clergyman. Henry's life as a country boy, driving the cow to pasture and roaming about the woods, made him familiar with Nature; new discoveries of her beauties and the constant changes of the seasons soon became his greatest delight. 5 The meadows and stream sides were stored with treasures, and when only twelve years of age he had already made a number of collections for Professor Agassiz, the great naturalist. Ralph 10 Waldo Emerson says of him: "It seemed as if the breezes brought him, It seemed as if the sparrow taught him, As if by secret signs he knew Where in far fields the orchis grew." Thoreau attended Harvard College, and was graduated in 1837. He then joined his brother in teaching a private school; but soon turned aside from this profession and decided to devote himself to the study of nature. 15 He was never idle, but preferred to earn what money he re- 20 quired by building a fence or a boat, or by laboring on some farm, rather than to be confined to any regular occupation. He, however, became a land surveyor, as this employment led him constantly to new ground for observation. A Robinson Crusoe's life, with only his own efforts and na- 25 ture to depend upon, would have suited this child of nature. Still, although so hermit like, he was really fond of sympathy, delighted to entertain his friends with stories of field and river, and was always ready to lead a party in search for nuts or berries. 30 In 1845 he made an experiment to prove that man could live as independent of his kind as the birds and squirrels. Upon a pine slope on the shores of Walden Pond he built and furnished a small house. During two years he lived here studying, writ5 ing, and learning to know the fishes, birds, and other woodland creatures. Birds came at his call, and even the fishes swam fearlessly through his hands. He would sit immovable, until the bird, reptile, or fish which had been startled by his presence would 10 return, sometimes out of curiosity to observe him, or to resume its habits. While a young man, he became acquainted with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was his lifelong friend. Thoreau so loved nature that his books are filled with descriptions of beautiful scenery, 15 ever-changing wild flowers, and the habits of animals. He was so happy in solitude that it made him heavy-hearted to see houses springing up among the woods and meadows where he had wandered as a boy. The axe was always destroying his forest. "Thank God," he said, "they cannot cut down the clouds!" 20 Thoreau died on the 6th of May, 1862. His grave is in the beautiful cemetery of Sleepy Hollow, Concord, beside those of Hawthorne and Emerson. In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as precious 25 to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose 30 quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun's hazy brush, -this the light dust-cloth, which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still. A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. 5 It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of 10 light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a subtler spirit sweeps over it. One November afternoon, in the calm at the end of 15 a rainstorm of several days' duration, when the sky was completely overcast and the air was full of mist, I observed that the pond was remarkably smooth, so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface; though it no longer reflected the bright tints of October, but 20 the sad, somber November colors of the surrounding hills. Though I passed over it as gently as possible, the slight undulations produced by my boat extended almost as far as I could see, and gave a ribbed appearance to 25 the reflections. But, as I looked over the surface, I saw here and there at a distance, a faint glimmer, as if some skater insects which had escaped the frosts might be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being so smooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom. Paddling gently to one of these places, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads of small 5 perch, about five inches long, of a rich bronze color in the green water, sporting there and constantly rising to the surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on it. In such transparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting the clouds, I seemed to be floating 10 through the air as in a balloon, and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they were a compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all around them. 15 There were many such schools in the pond, apparently improving the short season before winter would draw an icy shutter over their broad skylight, sometimes giving to the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it, or a few raindrops fell there. When 20 I approached carelessly and alarmed them, they made a sudden splash and rippling with their tails, as if one had struck the water with a brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the depths. Even as late as the 5th of December, one year, I 25 saw some dimples on the surface, and thinking it was going to rain hard immediately, the air being full of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars and row homeward; already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though I felt none on my cheek, and I antici |