Now up they go ding, then down again dong, And awhile they swing to the same old song, And the metal goes round at a single bound, A-lulling the fields with its measured sound, Till the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom As solemn and loud as the crack of doom. Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone, And seldom it is that one sound comes alone, For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng, And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along. When the echo has reached me in this lone vale, I am straightway a hero in coat of mail, I tug at my belt and I march on my post, And feel myself more than a match for a host. I am on the alert for some wonderful Thing Which somewhere 's a-taking place; 'Tis perchance the salute which our planet doth ring When it meeteth another in space. THE SHRIKE _Feb. 25._ Hark! hark! from out the thickest fog Warbles with might and main The fearless shrike, as all agog To find in fog his gain. His steady sails he never furls At any time o' year, And, perched now on Winter's curls, He whistles in his ear.[53] THE POET _March 3._ He must be something more than natural,—even supernatural. Nature will not speak through but along with him. His voice will not proceed from her midst, but, breathing on her, will make her the expression of his thought. He then poetizes when he takes a fact out of nature into spirit. He speaks without reference to time or place. His thought is one world, hers another. He is another Nature,—Nature's brother. Kindly offices do they perform for one another. Each publishes the other's truth. MORNING _April 4._ The atmosphere of morning gives a healthy hue to our prospects. Disease is a sluggard that overtakes, never encounters, us. We have the start each day, and may fairly distance him before the dew is off; but if we recline in the bowers of noon, he will come up with us after all. The morning dew breeds no cold. We enjoy a diurnal reprieve in the beginning of each day's creation. In the morning we do not believe in expediency; we will start afresh, and have no patching, no temporary fixtures. The afternoon man has an interest in the past; his eye is divided, and he sees indifferently well either way. DRIFTING Drifting in a sultry day on the sluggish waters of the pond, I almost cease to live and begin to be. A boatman stretched on the deck of his craft and dallying with the noon would be as apt an emblem of eternity for me as the serpent with his tail in his mouth. I am never so prone to lose my identity. I am dissolved in the haze. DISAPPOINTMENT _April 7. Sunday._ The tediousness and detail of execution never occur to the genius projecting; it always antedates the completion of its work. It condescends to give time a few hours to do its bidding in. RESOLVE