[9] Without apology for the abrupt change of field and atmosphere--after what I have put in the preceding fifty or sixty pages--temporary episodes, thank heaven!--I restore my book to the bracing and buoyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor Nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life. Who knows, (I have it in my fancy, my ambition,) but the pages now ensuing may carry ray of sun, or smell of grass or corn, or call of bird, or gleam of stars by night, or snow-flakes falling fresh and mystic, to denizen of heated city house, or tired workman or workwoman?--or may-be in sick-room or prison--to serve as cooling breeze, or Nature's aroma, to some fever'd mouth or latent pulse. ENTERING A LONG FARM-LANE As every man has his hobby-liking, mine is for a real farm-lane fenced by old chestnut-rails gray-green with dabs of moss and lichen, copious weeds and briers growing in spots athwart the heaps of stray-pick' d stones at the fence bases--irregular paths worn between, and horse and cow tracks--all characteristic accompaniments marking and scenting the neighborhood in their seasons--apple-tree blossoms in forward April--pigs, poultry, a field of August buckwheat, and in another the long flapping tassels of maize--and so to the pond, the expansion of the creek, the secluded-beautiful, with young and old trees, and such recesses and vistas. TO THE SPRING AND BROOK So, still sauntering on, to the spring under the willows--musical as soft clinking glasses-pouring a sizeable stream, thick as my neck, pure and clear, out from its vent where the bank arches over like a great brown shaggy eyebrow or mouth-roof--gurgling, gurgling ceaselessly--meaning, saying something, of course (if one could only translate it)--always gurgling there, the whole year through--never giving out--oceans of mint, blackberries in summer--choice of light and shade--just the place for my July sun-baths and water-baths too--but mainly the inimitable soft sound-gurgles of it, as I sit there hot afternoons. How they and all grow into me, day after day--everything in keeping--the wild, just-palpable perfume, and the dappled leaf-shadows, and all the natural-medicinal, elemental-moral influences of the spot. Babble on, O brook, with that utterance of thine! I too will express what I have gather'd in my days and progress, native, subterranean, past--and now thee. Spin and wind thy way--I with thee, a little while, at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest, reckest not me, (yet why be so certain? who can tell?)--but I will learn from thee, and dwell on thee--receive, copy, print from thee. AN EARLY SUMMER REVEILLE