Turning to other scenes in the revitalized landscape, he tells us that he came upon other poignant signs of nature's rebirth, such as the first sparrow of spring and a slight and graceful hawk and a marsh hawk. As the day moved into evening, the narrator was suddenly startled by the honking of the returning geese that flew low over the woods.
Looking then at the vegetation, he saw that the pitch-pines and shrub-oaks which had drooped through the winter had suddenly become greener, more erect and alive. By May, nature's new, rich fertility fully expressed itself. Even the lowly grasses revealed nature's new vigor. From the image of "springing" grass, the narrator "skims off" another truth about his present feeling of new vitality: "our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity."
The narrator is once again ecstatic in nature and he concludes the chapter by succinctly summarizing the sense of strong vitality continuously showing forth in nature: "And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass." As nature grows toward its summer maturation, the narrator will grow toward his spiritual fulfillment.
