Selections from the "Spring" Section of Walden

Henry David Thoreau

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was

that I should have leisure and opportunity to see

the Spring come in. … Fogs and rains and warmer

suns are gradually melting the snow; the days

have grown sensibly longer; and I see how I shall

get through the winter without adding to my

woodpile,for large fires are no longer necessary.

At length the sun's rays have attained the right

angle, and warm winds  up mist and rain and melt

the snow banks, and the sun dispersing the mist

smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white

smoking with incense, through which the traveler

picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music

of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins

are filled with the blood of winter which they are

bearing off.

The change from storm and winter to serene and

mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours

to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis

which all things proclaim. It is seemingly

instantaneous at last. Suddenly an influx of light

filled my house,though the evening was at hand,

and the clouds of winter still overhung it, and the

eaves were dripping with sleety rain.

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 be fell us, like the grass

which confesses the influence of the slightest dew

that falls on it; … We loiter in winter while it is

already spring.

Cheer ;-)