Dong, sounds the brass in the east, As if for a civic feast, But I like that sound the best Out of the fluttering west.

The steeple rings a knell, But the fairies' silvery bell Is the voice of that gentle folk, Or else the horizon that spoke.

Its metal is not of brass, But air, and water, and glass, And under a cloud it is swung, And by the wind is rung, With a slim silver tongue.

When the steeple tolls the noon, It soundeth not so soon, Yet it rings an earlier hour, And the sun has not reached its tower.

May 10. Monday. A good warning to the restless tourists of these days is contained in the last verses of Claudian's "Old Man of Verona."

"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. Plus habet hic vitae, plus habet ille viae."

May 23. Sunday. Barn.—The distant woods are but the tassels of my eye.

Books are to be attended to as new sounds merely. Most would be put to a sore trial if the reader should assume the attitude of a listener. They are but a new note in the forest. To our lonely, sober thought the earth is a wild unexplored. Wildness as of the jay and muskrat reigns over the great part of nature. The oven-bird and plover are heard in the horizon. Here is a new book of heroes, come to me like the note of the chewink from over the fen, only over a deeper and wider fen. The pines are unrelenting sifters of thought; nothing petty leaks through them. Let me put my ear close, and hear the sough of this book, that I may know if any inspiration yet haunts it. There is always a later edition of every book than the printer wots of, no matter how recently it was published. All nature is a new impression every instant.