LOAFING IN THE WOODS
_March 8_.--I write this down in the country again, but in a new spot,
seated on a log in the woods, warm, sunny, midday. Have been loafing
here deep among the trees, shafts of tall pines, oak, hickory, with
a thick undergrowth of laurels and grapevines--the ground cover'd
everywhere by debris, dead leaves, breakage, moss--everything
solitary, ancient, grim. Paths (such as they are) leading hither and
yon--(how made I know not, for nobody seems to come here, nor man
nor cattle-kind.) Temperature to-day about 60, the wind through the
pine-tops; I sit and listen to its hoarse sighing above (and to the
_stillness_) long and long, varied by aimless rambles in the old roads
and paths, and by exercise-pulls at the young saplings, to keep my
joints from getting stiff. Blue-birds, robins, meadow-larks begin to
appear.
_Next day, 9th_.--A snowstorm in the morning, and continuing most of
the day. But I took a walk over two hours, the same woods and paths,
amid the falling flakes. No wind, yet the musical low murmur through
the pines, quite pronounced, curious, like waterfalls, now still'd,
now pouring again. All the senses, sight, sound, smell, delicately
gratified. Every snowflake lay where it fell on the evergreens,
holly-trees, laurels, &c., the multitudinous leaves and branches
piled, bulging-white, defined by edge-lines of emerald--the tall
straight columns of the plentiful bronze-topt pines--a slight resinous
odor blending with that of the snow.
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