Plowing through the deepest soil; Ridges pile on either side, While we through the furrow glide, Reaping bubbles for our toil.
Dew before and drought behind, Onward all doth seem to fly; Naught contents the eager mind, Only rapids now are kind, Forward are the earth and sky.
Sudden music strikes the ear, Leaking out from yonder bank, Fit such voyagers to cheer.
Sure there must be Naiads here, Who have kindly played this prank.
There I know the cunning pack Where yon self-sufficient rill All its telltale hath kept back, Through the meadows held its clack, And now bubbleth its fill.
Silent flows the parent stream, And if rocks do lie below Smothers with her waves the din, As it were a youthful sin, Just as still and just as slow.
But this gleeful little rill, Purling round its storied pebble, Tinkles to the selfsame tune From December until June, Nor doth any drought enfeeble.
See the sun behind the willows, Rising through the golden haze, How he gleams along the billows, Their white crests the easy pillows Of his dew-besprinkled rays.
Forward press we to the dawning, For Aurora leads the way, Sultry noon and twilight scorning; In each dewdrop of the morning Lies the promise of a day.
Rivers from the sun do flow, Springing with the dewy morn; Voyageurs 'gainst time do row, Idle noon nor sunset know, Ever even with the dawn.[58] Since that first "Away! away!"
Many a lengthy league we've rowed, Still the sparrow on the spray Hastes to usher in the day With her simple stanza'd ode.[59] THE BREEZE'S INVITATION _July 20._ Come let's roam the breezy pastures, Where the freest zephyrs blow, Batten on the oak tree's rustle, And the pleasant insect bustle, Dripping with the streamlet's flow.
What if I no wings do wear, Thro' this solid-seeming air I can skim like any swallow; Whoso dareth let her follow, And we'll be a jovial pair.
Like two careless swifts let's sail, Zephyrus shall think for me; Over hill and over dale, Riding on the easy gale, We will scan the earth and sea.
Yonder see that willow tree Winnowing the buxom air; You a gnat and I a bee, With our merry minstrelsy We will make a concert there.
One green leaf shall be our screen, Till the sun doth go to bed, I the king and you the queen Of that peaceful little green, Without any subject's aid.
To our music Time will linger, And earth open wide her ear, Nor shall any need to tarry To immortal verse to marry Such sweet music as he'll hear.
_July 24._ Nature doth have her dawn each day, But mine are far between; Content, I cry, for, sooth to say, Mine brightest are, I ween.
For when my sun doth deign to rise, Though it be her noontide, Her fairest field in shadow lies, Nor can my light abide.
Sometimes I bask me in her day, Conversing with my mate; But if we interchange one ray, Forthwith her heats abate.
Through his discourse I climb and see, As from some eastern hill, A brighter morrow rise to me Than lieth in her skill.
As't were two summer days in one, Two Sundays come together, Our rays united make one sun, With fairest summer weather.[60] _July 25._ There is no remedy for love but to love more.
_Aug. 31._ Made seven miles, and moored our boat on the west side of a little rising ground which in the spring forms an island in the river, the sun going down on one hand, and our eminence contributing its shadow to the night on the other.[61] In the twilight so elastic is the air that the sky seems to tinkle [_sic_] over farmhouse and wood. Scrambling up the bank of our _terra incognita_ we fall on huckleberries, which have slowly ripened here, husbanding the juices which the months have distilled, for our peculiar use this night.[62] If they had been rank poison, the entire simplicity and confidence with which we plucked them would have insured their wholesomeness. The devout attitude of the hour asked a blessing on that repast. It was fit for the setting sun to rest on.
* * * * * From our tent here on the hillside, through that isosceles door, I see our lonely mast on the shore, it may be as an eternity fixture, to be seen in landscapes henceforth, or as the most temporary standstill of time, the boat just come to anchor, and the mast still rocking to find its balance.[63] * * * * * No human life is in night,—the woods, the boat, the shore,—yet is it lifelike.[64] The warm pulse of a young life beats steadily underneath all. This slight wind is where one artery approaches the surface and is skin deep.
* * * * * While I write here, I hear the foxes trotting about me over the dead leaves, and now gently over the grass, as if not to disturb the dew which is falling. Why should we not cultivate neighborly relations with the foxes? As if to improve upon our seeming advances, comes one to greet us nosewise under our tent-curtain. Nor do we rudely repulse him.
Is man powder and the fox flint and steel? Has not the time come when men and foxes shall lie down together?
* * * * * Hist! there, the musquash by the boat is taking toll of potatoes and melons. Is not this the age of a community of goods? His presumption kindles in me a brotherly feeling. Nevertheless. I get up to reconnoitre, and tread stealthily along the shore to make acquaintance with him. But on the riverside I can see only the stars reflected in the water, and now, by some ripple ruffling the disk of a star, I discover him.
* * * * * In the silence of the night the sound of a distant alarm bell is borne to these woods. Even now men have fires and extinguish them, and, with distant horizon blazings and barking of dogs, enact the manifold drama of life.[65] * * * * * We begin to have an interest in sun, moon, and stars. What time riseth Orion? Which side the pole gropeth the bear? East, West, North, and South,—where are they? What clock shall tell the hours for us?—Billerica, midnight.
_Sept. 1. Sunday._ Under an oak on the bank of the canal in Chelmsford.
From Ball's Hill to Billerica meeting-house the river is a noble stream of water, flowing between gentle hills and occasional cliffs, and well wooded all the way. It can hardly be said to flow at all, but rests in the lap of the hills like a quiet lake. The boatmen call it a dead stream. For many long reaches you can see nothing to indicate that men inhabit its banks.[66] Nature seems to hold a sabbath herself to-day,—a still warm sun on river and wood, and not breeze enough to ruffle the water. Cattle stand up to their bellies in the river, and you think Rembrandt should be here.
Camped under some oaks in Tyngsboro, on the east bank of the Merrimack, just below the ferry.[67] _Sept. 2._ Camped in Merrimack, on the west bank, by a deep ravine.[68] _Sept. 3._ In Bedford, on the west bank, opposite a large rock, above Coos Falls.[69] _Sept. 4. Wednesday._ Hooksett, east bank, two or three miles below the village, opposite Mr. Mitchel's.[70] _Sept. 6._ By stage to Plymouth, 40 miles, and on foot to Tilton's inn, Thornton. The scenery commences on Sanbornton Square, whence the White Mountains are first visible. In Campton it is decidedly mountainous.
_Sept. 7._ Walked from Thornton through Peeling[72] and Lincoln to Franconia. In Lincoln visited Stone Flume and Basin, and in Franconia the Notch, and saw the Old Man of the Mountain.
_Sept. 8._ Walked from Franconia to Thomas J. Crawford's.
_Sept. 10._ Ascended the mountain and rode to Conway.
_Sept. 11._ Rode to Concord.
_Sept. 12._ Rode to Hooksett and rowed to Bedford, N. H., or rather to the northern part of Merrimack, near the ferry, by a large island, near which we camped.[73] _Sept 13._ Rowed and sailed to Concord, about 50 miles.[74] THE WISE REST _Sept 17._ Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days were an eternity.[75] All her operations seem separately, for the time, the single object for which all things tarry. Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity were allotted for the least deed? Let him consume never so many æons, so that he go about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring of his nails.[76] If the setting sun seems to hurry him to improve the day while it lasts, the chant of the crickets fails not to reassure him, even-measured as of old, teaching him to take his own time henceforth forever. The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. He each moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step, while others never relax the muscles of the leg till the accumulated fatigue obliges them to stop short.
As the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait for it.
_Oct 22._ Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.[77] ÆSCHYLUS _Nov. 5._ There was one man lived his own healthy Attic life in those days. The words that have come down to us evidence that their speaker was a seer in his day and generation. At this day they owe nothing to their dramatic form, nothing to stage machinery, and the fact that they were spoken under these or those circumstances. All display of art for the gratification of a factitious taste is silently passed by to come at the least particle of absolute and genuine thought they contain. The reader will be disappointed, however, who looks for traits of a rare wisdom or eloquence, and will have to solace himself, for the most part, with the poet's humanity and what it was in him to say. He will discover that, like every genius, he was a solitary liver and worker in his day.
We are accustomed to say that the common sense of this age belonged to the seer of the last,—as if time gave him any vantage ground. But not so: I see not but Genius must ever take an equal start, and all the generations of men are virtually at a standstill for it to come and consider of them. Common sense is not so familiar with any truth but Genius will represent it in a strange light to it. Let the seer bring down his broad eye to the most stale and trivial fact, and he will make you believe it a new planet in the sky.
As to criticism, man has never to make allowance to man; there is naught to excuse, naught to bear in mind.
All the past is here present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can.
GROWTH We are not apt to remember that we grow. It is curious to reflect how the maiden waiteth patiently, confiding as the unripe houstonia of the meadow, for the slow moving years to work their will with her,—perfect and ripen her,—like it to be fanned by the wind, watered by the rain, and receive her education at the hands of nature.
These young buds of manhood in the streets are like buttercups in the meadows,—surrendered to nature as they.
_Nov. 7._ I was not aware till to-day of a rising and risen generation.
Children appear to me as raw as the fresh fungi on a fence rail. By what degrees of consanguinity is this succulent and rank-growing slip of manhood related to me? What is it but another herb, ranging all the kingdoms of nature, drawing in sustenance by a thousand roots and fibres from all soils.
LACONICISM _Nov. 8._ Prometheus' answer to Io's question, who has bound him to the rock, is a good instance:— Βούλουμα μὲν τὸ δῖον, Ἡφαίστου δὲ χείρ.
(The will indeed of Zeus, of Vulcan the hand.)
Also:— Πταίσας δὲ τῷδε πρὸς κακῷ, μαθήσεται, Ὅσον τό, τ᾽ ἄρχειν καὶ τὸ δουλούειν δίχα.
Such naked speech is the standing aside of words to make room for thoughts.
REGRET _Nov. 13._ Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. By so doing you will be astonished to find yourself restored once more to all your emoluments.
DESPONDENCY _Nov. 14._ There is nowhere any apology for despondency. Always there is life which, rightly lived, implies a divine satisfaction. I am soothed by the rain-drops on the door-sill; every globule that pitches thus confidently from the eaves to the ground is my life insurance. Disease and a rain-drop cannot coexist. The east wind is not itself consumptive, but has enjoyed a rare health from of old. If a fork or brand stand erect, good is portended by it. They are the warrant of universal innocence.
FAREWELL _Nov. 19._ Light-hearted, thoughtless, shall I take my way, When I to thee this being have resigned, Well knowing where, upon a future day, With us'rer's craft more than myself to find.
LINNÆUS _Nov. 22._ Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leather breeches," and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Buonaparte would a park of artillery to be used in the Russian Campaign. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quadruped and biped. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.
These facts have even a _novel_ interest.[78] _Nov. 29._ Many brave men have there been, thank Fortune, but I shall never grow brave by comparison. When I remember myself I shall forget them.
BRAVERY _Dec. 2._ A rare landscape immediately suggests a suitable inhabitant, whose breath shall be its wind, whose moods its seasons, and to whom it will always be fair. To be chafed and worried, and not as serene as Nature, does not become one whose nature is as steadfast as she. We do all stand in the front ranks of the battle every moment of our lives; where there is a brave man there is the thickest of the fight, there the post of honor. Not he who procures a substitute to go to Florida is exempt from service; he gathers his laurels in another field. Waterloo is not the only battle-ground: as many and fatal guns are pointed at my breast now as are contained in the English arsenals.
NOON [_Undated._][79] Straightway dissolved, Like to the morning mists—or rather like the subtler mists of noon— Stretched I far up the neighboring mountain's sides, Adown the valleys, through the nether air, Bathing, with fond expansiveness of soul, The tiniest blade as the sublimest cloud.
What time the bittern, solitary bird, Hides now her head amid the whispering fern, And not a paddock vexes all the shore, Nor feather ruffles the incumbent air, Save where the wagtail interrupts the noon.
FROM A CHAPTER ON BRAVERY.—_Script_ _Dec._ Bravery deals not so much in resolute action, as in healthy and assured rest. Its palmy state is a staying at home, and compelling alliance in all directions.[80] The brave man never heareth the din of war; he is trustful and unsuspecting, so observant of the least trait of good or beautiful that, if you turn toward him the dark side of anything, he will still see only the bright.
* * * * * One moment of serene and confident life is more glorious than a whole campaign of daring. We should be ready for all issues, not daring to die but daring to live. To the brave even danger is an ally.
* * * * * In their unconscious daily life all are braver than they know. Man slumbers and wakes in his twilight with the confidence of noonday; he is not palsied nor struck dumb by the inexplicable riddle of the universe.
A mere surveyor's report or clause in a preëmption bill contains matter of quite extraneous interest, of a subdued but confident tone, evincing such a steadiness in the writer as would have done wonders at Bunker's Hill or Marathon. Where there is the collected eye, there will not fail the effective hand; χεὶρ δ᾽ ὁρᾷ τὸ δράσιμον.
* * * * * Science is always brave, for to know is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts in her train. Cowardice is unscientific, for there cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of war, for that advances, but a retreat is rarely well conducted; if it is, then is it an orderly advance in the face of circumstances.[81] * * * * * If his fortune deserts him, the brave man in pity still abides by her.
Samuel Johnson and his friend Savage, compelled by poverty to pass the night in the streets, resolve that they will stand by their country.
* * * * * The state of complete manhood is virtue, and virtue and bravery are one. This truth has long been in the languages. All the relations of the subject are hinted at in the derivation and analogies of the Latin words _vir_ and _virtus_, and the Greek ἀγαθός and ἄριστος. Language in its settled form is the record of men's second thoughts, a more faithful utterance than they can momentarily give. What men say is so sifted and obliged to approve itself as answering to a common want, that nothing absolutely frivolous obtains currency in the language. The analogies of words are never whimsical and meaningless, but stand for real likenesses. Only the ethics of mankind, and not of any particular man, give point and vigor to our speech.
* * * * * The coward was born one day too late, for he has never overtaken the present hour. He is the younger son of creation, who now waiteth till the elder decease.[82] He does not dwell on the earth as though he had a deed of the land in his pocket,—not as another lump of nature, as imperturbable an occupant as the stones in the field. He has only rented a few acres of time and space, and thinks that every accident portends the expiration of his lease. He is a non-proprietor, a serf, in his moral economy nomadic, having no fixed abode. When danger appears, he goes abroad and clings to straws.
* * * * * Bravery and Cowardice are kindred correlatives with Knowledge and Ignorance, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil.
* * * * * If you let a single ray of light through the shutter, it will go on diffusing itself without limit till it enlighten the world, but the shadow that was never so wide at first as rapidly contracts till it comes to naught. The shadow of the moon when it passes nearest the sun is lost in space ere it can reach our earth to eclipse it. Always the _system_ shines with uninterrupted light, for, as the sun is so much larger than any planet, no shadow can travel far into space. We may bask always in the light of the system, always may step back out of the shade. No man's shadow is as large as his body, if the rays make a right angle with the reflecting surface. Let our lives be passed under the equator, with the sun in the meridian.
There is no ill which may not be dissipated like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it. Overcome evil with good. Practice no such narrow economy as they whose bravery amounts to no more light than a farthing candle, before which most objects cast a shadow wider than themselves.[83] * * * * * It was a conceit of Plutarch, accounting for the preferences given to signs observed on the left hand, that men may have thought "things terrestrial and mortal directly over against heavenly and divine things, and do conjecture that the things which to us are on the left hand, the gods send down from their right hand."[84] If we are not blind, we shall see how a right hand is stretched over all, as well the unlucky as lucky, and that the ordering soul is only right-handed, distributing with one palm all our fates.[85] * * * * * Men have made war from a deeper instinct than peace. War is but the compelling of peace.[86] When the world is declared under martial law, every Esau retakes his birthright, and what there is in him does not fail to appear. He wipes off all old scores and commences a new account. The world is interested to know how any soul will demean itself in so novel a position. But when war too, like commerce and husbandry, gets to be a routine, and men go about it as indented apprentices, the hero degenerates into a marine, and the standing army into a standing jest.
* * * * * No pains are spared to do honor to the brave soldier. All guilds and corporations are taxed to provide him with fit harness and equipment.
His coat must be red as the sunset, or blue as the heavens. Gold or silver, pinchbeck or copper, solid or superficial, mark him for fortune's favorite. The skill of a city enchases and tempers his sword-blade; the Tyrian dye confounds him with emperors and kings.
Wherever he goes, music precedes and prepares the way for him. His life is a holiday, and the contagion of his example unhinges the universe.
The world puts by work and comes out to stare. He is the one only man.
He recognizes no time-honored casts and conventions, no fixtures but transfixtures, no governments at length settled on a permanent basis.
One tap of the drum sets the political and moral harmonies all ajar.
His ethics may well bear comparison with the priest's. He may rally, charge, retreat in an orderly manner, but never flee nor flinch.[87] Each more melodious note I hear Brings sad reproach to me, That I alone afford the ear, Who would the music be.[88] The brave man is the sole patron of music;[89] he recognizes it for his mother-tongue,—a more mellifluous and articulate language than words, in comparison with which speech is recent and temporary. It is his voice. His language must have the same majestic movement and cadence that philosophy assigns to the heavenly bodies. The steady flux of his thought constitutes time in music. The universe falls in and keeps pace with it, which before proceeded singly and discordant. Hence are poetry and song. When Bravery first grew afraid and went to war, it took music along with it. The soul delighted still to hear the echo of its own voice. Especially the soldier insists on agreement and harmony always.
Indeed, it is that friendship there is in war that makes it chivalrous and heroic. It was the dim sentiment of a noble friendship for the purest soul the world has seen, that gave to Europe a crusading era.[90] * * * * * The day of tilts and tournaments has gone by, but no herald summons us to the tournament of love.
* * * * * The brave warrior must have harmony if not melody at any sacrifice.
Consider what shifts he makes. There are the bagpipe, the gong, the trumpet, the drum,—either the primitive central African or Indian, or the brass European. Ever since Jericho fell down before a blast of rams' horns, the martial and musical have gone hand in hand. If the soldier marches to the sack of a town, he must be preceded by drum and trumpet, which shall as it were identify his cause with the accordant universe.
All woods and walls echo back his own spirit, and the hostile territory is then preoccupied for him. He is no longer insulated, but infinitely related and familiar. The roll-call musters for him all the forces of nature.[91] * * * * * All sounds, and more than all, silence, do fife and drum for us.[92] The least creaking doth whet all our senses and emit a tremulous light, like the aurora borealis, over things. As polishing expresses the vein in marble and the grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere.[93] * * * * * To the sensitive soul, the universe has its own fixed measure, which is its measure also, and, as a regular pulse is inseparable from a healthy body, so is its healthiness dependent on the regularity of its rhythm.
In all sounds the soul recognizes its own rhythm, and seeks to express its sympathy by a correspondent movement of the limbs. When the body marches to the measure of the soul, then is true courage and invincible strength.[94] * * * * * The coward would reduce this thrilling sphere music to a universal wail, this melodious chant to a nasal cant. He thinks to conciliate all hostile influences by compelling his neighborhood into a partial concord with himself, but his music is no better than a jingle which is akin to He blows a feeble blast of slender melody, because nature can have no more sympathy with such a soul than it has of cheerful melody in itself.
Hence hears he no accordant note in the universe, and is a coward, or consciously outcast and deserted man. But the brave man, without drum or trumpet, compels concord everywhere by the universality and tunefulness of his soul.[96] "Take a metallic plate," says Coleridge, "and strew sand on it; sound a harmonic chord over the sand, and the grains will whirl about in circles, and other geometrical figures, all, as it were, depending on some point relatively at rest. Sound a discord, and every grain will whisk about without any order at all, in no figures, and with no points of rest." The brave man is such a point of relative rest, over which the soul sounds ever a harmonic chord.
* * * * * Music is either a sedative or a tonic to the soul.[97] I read that "Plato thinks the gods never gave men music, the science of melody and harmony, for mere delectation or to tickle the ear; but that the discordant parts of the circulations and beauteous fabric of the soul, and that of it that roves about the body, and many times, for want of tune and air, breaks forth into many extravagances and excesses, might be sweetly recalled and artfully wound up to their former consent and agreement."[98] * * * * * By dint of wind and stringed instruments the coward endeavors to put the best face on the matter,—whistles to keep his courage up.
* * * * * There are some brave traits related by Plutarch; e. g.: "Homer acquaints us how Ajax, being to engage in a single combat with Hector, bade the Grecians pray to the gods for him; and while they were at their devotions, he was putting on his armor."
On another occasion, a storm arises, "which as soon as the pilot sees, he falls to his prayers, and invokes his tutelar dæmons, but neglects not in the meantime to hold to the rudder and let down the main yard."
"Homer directs his husbandman, before he either plow or sow, to pray to the terrestrial Jove and the venerable Ceres, but with his hand upon the plow-tail."
Ἀρχὴ γὰρ ὄντως τοῦ νικᾷν τὸ θαῤῥεῖν. (Verily, to be brave is the beginning of victory.)
* * * * * The Romans "made Fortune surname to Fortitude," for fortitude is that alchemy that turns all things to good fortune. The man of fortitude, whom the Latins called fortis, is no other than that lucky person whom _fors_ favors, or _vir summae fortis_. If we will, every bark may "carry Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune." The brave man stays at home. For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself; he was an arrant coward who first made shields of brass. For armor of proof, mea virtute me involvo (I wrap myself in my virtue); "Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruins, smiling yet."[99] * * * * * The bravest deed, which for the most part is left quite out of history, which alone wants the staleness of a deed done and the uncertainty of a deed doing, is the life of a great man. To perform exploits is to be temporarily bold, as becomes a courage that ebbs and flows, the soul quite vanquished by its own deed subsiding into indifference and cowardice; but the exploit of a brave life consists in its momentary completeness.[100] FRIENDSHIP [101] _Fall of_ 1839. Then first I conceive of a true friendship, when some rare specimen of manhood presents itself. It seems the mission of such to commend virtue to mankind, not by any imperfect preaching of her word, but by their own carriage and conduct. We may then worship moral beauty without the formality of a religion.
They are some fresher wind that blows, some new fragrance that breathes.
They make the landscape and the sky for us.
* * * * * The rules of other intercourse are all inapplicable to this.
* * * * * We are one virtue, one truth, one beauty. All nature is our satellite, whose light is dull and reflected. She is subaltern to us,—an episode to our poem; but we are primary, and radiate light and heat to the system.
* * * * * I am only introduced once again to myself.
* * * * * Conversation, contact, familiarity are the steps to it and instruments of it, but it is most perfect when these are done, and distance and time oppose no barrier.
* * * * * I need not ask any man to be my friend, more than the sun the earth to be attracted by him. It is not his to give, nor mine to receive. I cannot pardon my enemy; let him pardon himself.
* * * * * Commonly we degrade Love and Friendship by presenting them under the aspect of a trivial dualism.
* * * * * What matter a few words more or less with my friend,—with all mankind;—they will still be my friends in spite of themselves. Let them stand aloof if they can! As though the most formidable distance could rob me of any real sympathy or advantage! No, when such interests are at stake, time, and distance, and difference fall into their own places.
* * * * * But alas! to be actually separated from that parcel of heaven we call our friend, with the suspicion that we shall no more meet in nature, is source enough for all the elegies that ever were written. But the true remedy will be to recover our friend again piecemeal, wherever we can find a feature, as Æetes gathered up the members of his son, which Medea had strewn in her path.
* * * * * The more complete our sympathy, the more our senses are struck dumb, and we are repressed by a delicate respect, so that to indifferent eyes we are least his friend, because no vulgar symbols pass between us. On after thought, perhaps, we come to fear that we have been the losers by such seeming indifference, but in truth that which withholds us is the bond between us.
* * * * * My friend will be as much better than myself as my aspiration is above my performance.
* * * * * This is most serene autumn weather. The chirp of crickets may be heard at noon over all the land. As in summer they are heard only at nightfall, so now by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year.[102] The lively decay of autumn promises as infinite duration and freshness as the green leaves of spring.
IV 1840 (ÆT. 22-23) _Jan. 10._ I know the world where land and water meet, By yonder hill abutting on the main; One while I hear the waves incessant beat, Then, turning round, survey the land again.
Within a humble cot that looks to sea, Daily I breathe this curious warm life; Beneath a friendly haven's sheltering lee My noiseless day with myst'ry still is rife.
'Tis here, they say, my simple life began; And easy credit to the tale I lend, For well I know 'tis here I am a man.
But who will simply tell me of the end?
These eyes, fresh opened, spied the far-off Sea, Which like a silent godfather did stand, Nor uttered one explaining word to me, But introduced straight Godmother Land.
And yonder still stretches that silent main, With many glancing ships besprinkled o'er; And earnest still I gaze and gaze again Upon the selfsame waves and friendly shore, Till like a watery humor on the eye It still appears whichever way I turn, Its silent waste and mute o'erarching sky With close-shut eyes I clearly still discern.
And yet with lingering doubt I haste each morn To see if ocean still my gaze will greet, And with each day once more to life am born, And tread once more the earth with infant feet.
* * * * * My years are like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean's edge as I can go; My tardy steps its waves do oft o'erreach, Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.
Infinite work my hands find there to do, Gathering the relics which the waves upcast; Each storm doth scour the deep for something new, And every time the strangest is the last.
My sole employment 'tis, and scrupulous care, To place my gains beyond the reach of tides, Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare, Which ocean kindly to my hand confides.
I have no fellow-laborer on the shore; They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea; Sometimes I think the ocean they've sailed o'er Is deeper known upon the strand to me.
The middle sea can show no crimson dulse, Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view, Along the shore my hand is on its pulse, Whose feeble beat is elsewhere felt by few.
My neighbors come sometimes with lumb'ring carts.
As it would seem my pleasant toil to share, But straightway take their loads to distant marts, For only weeds and ballast are their care.
* * * * * 'Tis by some strange coincidence, if I Make common cause with ocean when he storms, Who can so well support a separate sky, And people it with multitude of forms.
Oft in the stillness of the night I hear Some restless bird presage the coming din, And distant murmurs faintly strike my ear From some bold bluff projecting far within.
My stillest depths straightway do inly heave More genially than rests the summer's calm; The howling winds through my soul's cordage grieve, Till every shelf and ledge gives the alarm.
Far from the shore the swelling billows rise, And gathering strength come rolling to the land, And, as each wave retires, and murmur dies, I straight pursue upon the streaming sand,