Thoreau writes in his journal:
6 A.M.—Up railroad.
Everything looks bright and as if it were washed clean. The red maples, now fully in bloom, show red tops . . .
9 A.M.—To Cliffs and thence by boat to Fair Haven.
I see the scrolls of the ferns just pushed up, but yet wholly invested with wool. The sweet-fern has not yet blossomed; its anthers are green and close, but its leaves, just beginning to expand . . .
Early starlight by riverside.
The water smooth and broad. I hear the loud and incessant cackling of probably a pigeon woodpecker,—what some time since I thought to be a different kind. Thousands of robins are filling the air with their trills . . .
