THE DREAM OF THE TOAD

I well remember the time this year when I first heard the dream of the toads.  I was laying out house-lots on Little River in Haverhill.  We had had some raw, cold and wet weather.  But this day was remarkably warm and pleasant, and I had thrown off my outside coat.  I was going home to dinner, past a shallow pool, which was green with springing grass, and where a new house was about being erected, when it occurred to me that I heard the dream of the toad.  It rang through and filled all the air, though I had not heard it once.  And I turned my companion's attention to it, but he did not appear to perceive it as a new sound in the air.  Loud and prevailing as it is, most men do not notice it at all.  It is to them, perchance, a sort of simmering or seething of all nature.  That afternoon the dream of the toads rang through the elms by Little River and affected the thoughts of men, though they were not conscious that they heard it…How watchful we must be to keep the crystal well that we were made, clear!

Henry David Thoreau

October 26, 1853

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