2 P.M.—To Conantum.

  It clears up (the rain) at noon, with a rather cool wind from the northwest and flitting clouds. The ground about one third covered with snow still What variety in the trunks of oaks! flow expressive of strength are some! There is one behind Hubbard’s which expresses a sturdy strength . . .

  The water on the meadows is now quite high on account of the melting snow and the rain. It makes a lively prospect when the wind blows, where our sumner meads spread,—a tumultuous sea, a myriad waves breaking with whitecaps, like gambolling sheep, for want of other comparison in the country. Far and wide a sea of motion, schools of porpoises, lines of Virgil realized. One would think it a novel sight for inland meadows. Where the cranberry and andromeda and swamp white oak and maple grow, here is a mimic sea with its gulls. At the bottom of the sea, cranberries.

  We love to see streams colored by the earth they have flown over, as well as pure . . .