Chapter IV: Sounds

Thoreau suggests we are in danger of forgetting the language all things speak, and describes his summer days spent in revery, not work.

His life became his amusement, with housework as a pleasant pastime, and he describes the flora growing in his front yard.

He describes the sounds of nature around his house, contrasting them with the whistle of the locomotive that penetrates his woods.

He watches the train with awe, as if it were a new mythological creature, a fire-steed worthy to inhabit the earth.

The train's regularity sets the village clocks, and its passage is like a fate that teaches men to keep on their own track.

He praises the enterprise and bravery of commerce, finding the freight train a refreshing reminder of the extent of the globe.

He watches tall pines and a cattle-train speed by, symbols of the pastoral life being whirled away, leaving him more alone than ever.

On Sundays, he hears the distant village bells, a melody strained by the air, and the lowing of cows, which he finds akin to the singing of minstrels.

He describes the whippoorwills that chanted their vespers by his door with clock-like precision every evening in the summer.

He listens to the dismal scream of the screech owls, which he interprets as the wailing of fallen souls, representing stark and unsatisfied thoughts.

At night, the shore rings with the trump of bullfrogs, which he imagines as ancient wine-bibbers trying to sing in their Stygian lake.