soon hear its mournful scream, probably to its mate; not loud now, but though within thirty or thirty-two rods, sounding a mile off. I hear it louder from my bed at night.
June 3, 1838. Walden.
"True, our converse a stranger is to speech;
Only the practised ear can catch the surging words
That break and die upon thy pebbled lips.
Thy flow of thought is noiseless as the lapse of thy own waters,
Wafted as is the morning mist up from thy surface,
So that the passive soul doth breathe it in,
And is infected with the truth thou wouldst express."
June 3, 1853. p. m. To Anursnack. By way of the Linnæa, which I find is not yet out. That thick pine wood is full of birds. . . . The painted cup is in its prime. It reddens the meadow, Painted Cup Meadow. It is a splendid show of brilliant scarlet, the color of the cardinal flower and surpassing it in mass and profusion. They first appear on the side of the hill, on dryer ground, half a dozen inches high, and the color is most striking then, when it is most rare and precious: but they now cover the meadow mingled with buttercups, etc., and many are more than eight inches high. I do not like the name. It does not remind me of a cup, rather of a flame when it first appears. It might be called flame flower, or scarlet tip. Here is a large meadow full of it, and yet very
