亨利·大卫·梭罗/Henry David Thoreau
This is a delicious evening,when the whole body is one sense,and i mbibes delight through every pore.I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature,a part of herself.As I walk along the stony shore of the pon d in my shirt-sleeves,though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy,an d I see nothing special to attract me,all the elements are unusually co ngenial to me.The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night,and the note o f the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water.Sy mpathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath;yet,like the lake,my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.Thes e small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface.Though it is now dark,the wind still blows a nd roars in the wood,the waves still dash,and some creatures lull the rest with their notes.The repose is never complete.The wildest animals do not repose,but seek their prey now;the fox,and skunk,and rabbit,now roam the fields and woods without fear.They are Nature's watchmen--links which connect the days of animated life.
When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and l eft their cards,either a bunch of flowers,or a wreath of evergreen,or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip.They who come rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands to pl ay with by the way,which they leave,either intentionally or accidental ly.One has peeled a willow wand,woven it into a ring,and dropped it o n my table.I could always tell if visitors had called in my absence,ei ther by the bended twigs or grass,or the print of their shoes,and gene rally of what sex or age or quality they were by some slight trace left,as a flower dropped,or a bunch of grass plucked and thrown away,even a s far off as the railroad,half a mile distant,or by the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe.Nay,I was frequently notified of the passage of a t raveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe.