Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/210

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196
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

life everlasting. Our experience does not wear upon us. It is seen to be fabulous or symbolical, aud the future is worth expecting. Encouraged, I set out once more to climb the mountain of the earth, for my steps are symbolical steps, and I have not reached the top of the earth yet. In two or three places I hear the ground-squirrel's first chirrup or qui-vive in the wall, like a bird or a cricket. Though I do not see him, the sun has reached him too.

Ah, then! as I was rising this crowning road, just beyond the old lime-kiln, there leaked into my open ear the faint peep of a hyla from some far pool. One little hyla, somewhere in the fens, aroused by the genial season, crawls up the bank or a bush, squats on a dry leaf, and essays a note or two which scarcely rends the air, does no violence to the zephyr, but yet leaks through all obstacles and far over the downs to the ear of the listening naturalist, as it were the first faint cry of the new-born year, notwithstanding the notes of birds. Where so long I have heard only the prattling and moaning of the wind, what means this tenser, far-piercing sound. All nature rejoices with one joy. If the hyla has revived again, why may not I?

Whatever your sex or position, life is a battle in which you are to show your pluck, and woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a