included in the "Poems of Nature," edited by Mr. Salt and Mr. Sanborn;
"Where dwell they?
They whisper in the oaks,
And they sigh in the hay,
Slimmer and winter, night and day,
Out on the meadows there dwell they.
They never die,
Nor snivel, nor cry,
Nor ask our pity
With a wet eye.
A sound estate they ever mend,
To every asker readily lend;
To the ocean wealth,
To the meadow health,
To Time his length,
To the rocks strength,
To the stars light,
To the weary night,
To the busy day,
To the idle play;
And so their good cheer never ends,
For all are their debtors and all their friends."
Fifty years ago Thoreau studied nature and became her scribe and interpreter in the days when she was scantily known and meagrely valued. With limitations, which the last half century has emphasized because of the rapid increase of scientific knowledge, with an excess of mysticism and poetic subjectivity, echo of the true New England Transcendentalism, he was the first American naturalist to combine science and liter-
