June 5, 1854. 6 p. m. To Cliffs. Now, just before sundown, a night-hawk is circling imp-like with undulating, irregular flight over the sproutland on the Cliff Hill with an occasional squeak, and showing the spot on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath, and a mate there sitting. This squeak and occasional booming is heard in the evening air, while the stillness on the side of the village makes more distinct the increased hum of insects.
I see at a distance a king-bird, or blackbird, pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet. I have come to the hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity, and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draught of Nature's serenity. Let deep answer to deep. Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, far off and elysian, unlike anything in the sky as yet. The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light green foliage which surrounds them. Children have been to the cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves which they have left, unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now. The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot
