亨利·大衛·梭羅/Henry David Thoreau
The wind has gently murmured through the blinds,or puffed with feat hery softness against the windows,and occasionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the leaves along,the livelong night.The meadow mouse ha s slept in his snug gallery in the sod,the owl has sat in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp,the rabbit,the squirrel,and the fox have al l been housed.The watch-dog has lain quiet on the hearth,and the cattl e have stood silent in their stalls.The earth itself has slept,as it w ere its first,not its last sleep,save when some street sign or woodhou se door has faintly creaked upon its hinge,cheering forlorn nature at h er midnight work--the only sound awake twixt Venus and Mars--advertising us of a remote inward warmth,a divine cheer and fellowship,where gods are met together,but where it is very bleak for men to stand.But while the earth has slumbered,all the air has been alive with feathery flakes descending,as if some northern Ceres reigned,showering her silvery gra in over all the fields.
We sleep,and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morni ng.The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window sill;the broad ened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light,which enhance s the snug cheer within.The stillness of the morning is impressive.The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward the window to look abroad through some clear space over the fields,we see the roofs stand under t heir snow burden.From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow,an d in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed core.The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side;and where were wall s and fences,we see fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky landscape,as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man's art.
Silently we unlatch the door,letting the drift fall in,and step ab road to face the cutting air.Already the stars have lost some of their sparkle,and a dull,leaden mist skirts the horizon.A lurid brazen ligh t in the east proclaims the approach of day,while the western landscape is dim and spectral still,and clothed in a somber Tartarean light,like the shadowy realms.They are infernal sounds only that you hear--the cro wing of cocks,the barking of dogs,the chopping of wood,the lowing of kine,all seem to come from Pluto's barnyard and beyond the Styx --not for any melancholy they suggest,but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mysterious for earth.The recent tracks of the fox or otter,in the yard,remind us that each hour of the night is crowded with events,and the primeval nature is still working and making tracks in the snow.Open ing the gate,we tread briskly along the lone country road,crunching th e dry and crisped snow under our feet,or aroused by the sharp,clear cr eak of the wood sled,just starting for the distant market,from the ear ly farmer's door,where it has lain the summer long,dreaming amid the chips and stubble;while far through the drifts and powdered windows we see the farmer's early candle,like a paled star,emitting a lonely bea m,as if some severe virtue were at its matins there.And one by one the smokes begin to ascend from the chimneys amid the trees and snows.