m, and
then steered straight to Canada, with a regular honk from the leader at
intervals, trusting to break their fast in muddier pools. A "plump" of
ducks rose at the same time and took the route to the north in the wake
of their noisier cousins.

For a week I heard the circling, groping clangor of some solitary goose
in the foggy mornings, seeking its companion, and still peopling the
woods with the sound of a larger life than they could sustain. In April
the pigeons were seen again flying express in small flocks, and in due
time I heard the martins twittering over my clearing, though it had not
seemed that the township contained so many that it could afford me any,
and I fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient race that dwelt
in hollow trees ere white men came. In almost all climes the tortoise
and the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and
birds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom,
and winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and
preserve the equilibrium of nature.

As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring
is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the
Golden Age.--

"Eurus ad Auroram Nabathaeaque regna recessit,
Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutinis."

"The East-Wind withdrew to Aurora and the Nabathean kingdom,
And the Persian, and the ridges placed under the morning rays.
.......

Man was born. Whether that Artificer of things,
The origin of a better world, made him from the divine seed;
Or the earth, being recent and lately sundered from the high
Ether, retained some seeds of cognate heaven."

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our
prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be
blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every
accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence
of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in
atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our
duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant
spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to
vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our
neighbors. You may have known your neighbor ye