in Thoreau’s Journal:

To Hill and beyond. It is so mild & moist as I saunter along by the wall and E of the hill.  That I remember or anticipate one of those warm rain storms in the spring, when the earth is just laid bare—the wind is South—& the Kladonia lichens are swollen and lusty with moisture—your foot sinking into them & pressing the water out as from a sponge—& the sandy places also are drinking it in. You wander indefinitely in a beaded coat—wet to the skin of your legs—sit on moss-clad rocks & stumps & hear the lisping of migrating sparrows—flitting amid the shrub oaks—sit hours at a time still & hone your thoughts. A rain which is as serene as fair weather—suggesting fairer weather than was ever seen— You could hug the clods that defile you. You feel the fertilizing influence of the rain in your mind. The part of you that is wettest is fullest of life, like the lichens.

You discover evidences of immortality not known to divines. You cease to die—You detect some buds and sprouts of life—every step in the old rye field is on virgin soil.