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So like tehs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and shady that the Druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond Flint&039;s Pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher, are fit to stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the ground reaths full of fruit; or to swas in festoons from the white spruce trees, and toadstools, round tables of the swai adorn the stuetable winkles; where the swalows like eyes of irooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the wild holly berries et his home with their beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden fruits, too fair foron some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hilltop; such as the black birch, of which we have some handsome specimens two feet in diaolden vest, perfumed like the first; the beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted, perfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specirove of sizable trees left in the township, supposed by soeons that were once baited with beechnuts near by; it is worth the while to see the silver grain sparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the Celtis occidentalis, or false elrown; sole tree, or a oda in the midst of the woods; and many others I could mention These were the shrines I visited both summer and winter

Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow&039;s arch, which filled the lower straturass and leaves around, and dazzling h colored crystal It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived like a dolphin If it had lasted longer it ed my employments and life As I walked on the railroad causeway, I used to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy myself one of the elect One who visited me declared that the shadows of some Irishmen before him had no halo about theuished Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his memoirs, that, after a certain terrible drea his confineht appeared over the shadow of his head at , whether he was in Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous when the grass was moist with dew This was probably the same phenomenon to which I have referred, which is especially observed in the h a constant one, it is not coination like Cellini&039;s, it would be basis enough for superstition Beside, he tells us that he showed it to very few But are they not indeed distinguished who are conscious that they are regarded at all?

I set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair Haven, through the woods, to eke out h Pleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Far,--

"Thy entry is a pleasant field,

Which some mossy fruit trees yield

Partly to a ruddy brook,

By gliding musquash undertook,

Andabout"

I thought of living there before I went to Walden I "hooked" the apples, leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the trout It was one of those afternoons which see before one, in which e portion of our natural life, though it was already half spent when I started By the way there came up a shohich cohs overth I hadup to my middle in water, I found an to rumble with such eods ht I, with such forked flashes to rout a poor unarmed fisherman So I made haste for shelter to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile fro been uninhabited:--

"And here a poet builded,

In the completed years,

For behold a trivial cabin

That to destruction steers"

So the Muse fables But therein, as I found, dwelt now John Field, an Irishman, and his wife, and several children, from the broad-faced boy who assisted his father at his work, and now ca to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sibyl-like, cone-headed infant that sat upon its father&039;s knee as in the palaces of nobles, and looked out froer inquisitively upon the stranger, with the privilege of infancy, not knowing but it was the last of a noble line, and the hope and cynosure of the world, instead of John Field&039;s poor starveling brat There we sat together under that part of the roof which leaked the least, while it showered and thundered without I had sat there many times of old before the ship was built that floated his fa, but shiftless man plainly was John Field; and his wife, she too was brave to cook so many successive dinners in the recesses of that lofty stove; with round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking to improve her condition one day; with the never absent mop in one hand, and yet no effects of it visible anywhere The chickens, which had also taken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the rooht, to roast well They stood and looked in nificantly Meanwhile " for a neighboring far hoe at the rate of ten dollars an acre and the use of the land with manure for one year, and his little broad-faced son worked cheerfully at his father&039;s side the while, not knowing how poor a bargain the latter hadhihbors, and that I too, who ca ht, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his coht in a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor et theain, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it cost an with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for theain to repair the waste of his syste, indeed it was broader than it was long, for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coet tea, and coffee, and meat every day But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result fros For I purposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be one I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence ofto redeem themselves A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture But alas! the culture of an Irish hoe I told hi, he required thick boots and stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out, but I wore light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so entleman (which, however, was not the case), and in an hour or tithout labor, but as a recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as h money to support ht all go a-huckleberrying in the suh at this, and his wife stared with ar if they had capital enough to begin such a course with, or arith by dead reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore I suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to split its e, and rout it in detail; -- thinking to deal with it roughly, as one should handle a thistle But they fight at an overwhel, John Field, alas! without arith so

"Do you ever fish?" I asked "Oh yes, I catch a ood perch I catch -- "What&039;s your bait?" "I catch shiners with fishworo now, John," said his wife, with glistening and hopeful face; but John demurred

The shoas now over, and a rainbow above the eastern woods proot without I asked for a drink, hoping to get a sight of the well bottom, to complete my survey of the premises; but there, alas! are shallows and quicksands, and rope broken withal, and bucket irrecoverable Meanwhile the right culinary vessel was selected, water was see delay passed out to the thirsty one -- not yet suffered to cool, not yet to settle Such gruel sustains life here, I thought; so, shuttingthe enuine hospitality the heartiest draught I could I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are concerned

As I was leaving the Irishain to the pond,in retired e places, appeared for an instant trivial to e; but as I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow oversounds borne to h the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius seemed to say -- Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day -- farther and wider -- and rest thee byRemember thy Creator in the days of thy youth Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at hoa to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never becolish bay Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers&039; crops? That is not its errand to thee Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport Enjoy the land, but own it not Through want of enterprise and faiththeir lives like serfs