The Swamp
(This section should be introduced here as a “loitering-place” of the saunterer as well as of the brook,—a rest in the journey of the waters when they linger placidly in the old mill-pond, backing-up from the dam, and flooding the lowlands. Although it might be brought in between the mountain-lake and the brook.)
Consider the Black Mountain Swamp for example; Beaver dam, Lenox. Cotton sedge; Sarracenia; Pond lilies; Sphagnum.
A Quaint Cradle. Nest of Reed Warbler or other bird built among reeds or rushes.
Musk-rat Huts. A Musquash Village. Muskrat’s bubble under the ice, driven away from its heath. See “Trapper”; also Thoreau. The provident musk-rat.
Scouts. Spring Heralds. Skunk cabbage.
Winter Botany. Crystalline Botany; Thoreau. It is the anatomy which determines the marked character and distinct individuality of plants, even of the same genus. The winter phantoms present its most perfect and unencumbered articulation, and render their forms against the snow especially conspicuous. Thus have I counted, without effort, eight species of golden-rod, growing in a tangle each as distinctly specific as in its summer dress and ornament.
A Frost Grotto.
Will o’ the Wisp. A fantasy with fairies, nymphs, or naiads.
Haunt of the Hylas.