User: Can you write me a poem about ellery channing in the style of The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy?
Assistant: Sure, here's a poem about ellery channing in the style of The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy:
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE                            xi
APPLE BLOSSOMS, _Carbon photograph (page 294)_     _Frontispiece_
WILD APPLE TREE,                                  _Colored plate_
excursion to Canada with his friend Ellery Channing, and sent his
swallowed and digested." Thoreau appears to have taken Greeley's
FRIEND THOREAU.... I am sorry you and C. cannot agree so as to
have your whole MS. printed. It will be worth nothing
elsewhere after having partly appeared in _Putnam's_. I think
it is a mistake to conceal the authorship of the several
articles, making them all (so to speak) _editorial_; but _if_
that is done, don't you see that the elimination of very
flagrant heresies (like your defiant Pantheism) becomes a
necessity? If you had withdrawn your MS. on account of the
abominable misprints in the first number, your ground would
have been far more tenable. However, do what you will. Yours,
"Natural History of Massachusetts" was contributed to _The Dial_,
publication in _The Dial_. "The Landlord" was printed in _The
After his death the interest which had already been growing was
Many of Thoreau's poems, including his translations from the
brother's death (several appeared in the _Boston Commonwealth_ in
collection, however, no more than its predecessors pretends to
afternoon.
The country was new to me beyond Fitchburg. In Ashburnham and
military trees appeared very numerous, for our rapid progress
Westmore-land, as if it were purely American, and he had made a
Ludlow, Mount Holly, and beyond, there is interesting mountain
scenery, not rugged and stupendous, but such as you could easily
latter with rosy spots or cheeks only, blushing on one side like
canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.
As you approach Lake Champlain you begin to see the New York
another day.
accompanying a war-party of the Canadian Indians against the
fertile in corn, such as I have eaten in this country, with an
The number of French-Canadian gentlemen and ladies among the
political reasons; and therefore we were tied to our seats. The
impression of a seaport,--to which ships of six hundred tons can
hurrahed their welcome; first the broadcloth, then the homespun.
hardly long enough for an airing, and then filled with a bustling
inferior.
"Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him
With the day's shame upon him."
I was obliged to frame some sentences that sounded like French in
comparison that it is the fruit of the sweet viburnum (_Viburnum
Lentago_), which with us rarely holds on till it is ripe.
interesting object. I heard something in the night about the boat
farmhouses are never above five arpents, and sometimes but three
thousand natives of Ireland; one thousand five hundred natives of
constructed. Keeping on about a mile we came to the Plains of
manoeuvred very well, and if the precision of their movements was
stationed at Gibraltar. As if his regiment, having perchance been
horses were introduced in 1665.
morning, we were taking a walk in Canada, in the Seigniory of
Beauport, a foreign country, which a few days before had seemed
almost as far off as England and France. Instead of rambling to
atmosphere that made me think of the fur-trade, which is so
My pack, in fact, was soon made, for I keep a short list of those
foot-traveler is made with a handkerchief, or, if he study
particular, but everywhere where our umbrella and bundle were. It
established through the politeness of all parties, that we were
After breakfast we proceeded to the fall, which was within half a
mountain-ash with its berries. Every emigrant who arrives in this
magnificently in a vast white sheet, making its contribution with
 Hierosme Lalemant says in 1648, in his Relation, he being
Superior: "All those who come to New France know well enough the
inhabitants see little or nothing of the world over the walls of
quarter of a mile from the road, to the top of the bank, to find
Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a roving spirit of
adventure which carried them further, in exposure to hardship and
authorities had taken the right steps to prevent the youth from
ranging the woods (_de courir les bois_), they would have had an
excellent militia to fight the Indians and English.
The road in this clayey-looking soil was exceedingly muddy in
characteristic winter dress of the Canadian, and I have since
Catholic Church. The churches were very picturesque, and their
counterpart has existed in Normandy for a thousand years. At the
friar-like personage, in his sacerdotal robe, appeared. To our
touching your hat, you may go smoothly through all Canada East. A
arbor-vitae, firs, birches, beeches, two or three kinds of maple,
At twilight we reached a bridge over a little river, the boundary
When we inquired here for a _maison publique_ we were directed
provisions; and there were no taverns, because there were no
In the morning, after a breakfast of tea, maple-sugar, bread and
butter, and what I suppose is called _potage_ (potatoes and meat
boiled with flour), the universal dish as we found, perhaps the
carpenter who made the church. There were one or two villagers at
Catholic country, and there was no trace of any other religion. I
competent to say; I only know that it is not made impure by being
The falls, which we were in search of, are three miles up the St.
channels, how far down I do not know, but far enough for all our
comparatively untrodden wilderness.
names, it was they. They have preceded the pioneer on our own
frontiers, and named the _prairie_ for us. _La Riviere au Chien_
Yet the impression which this country made on me was commonly
withal,--notwithstanding what I have said about Hudson's Bay,--it
_Bartholomy_, etc., etc.; as if it needed only a little foreign
Germany. I could not at once bring myself to believe that the
inhabitants who pronounced daily those beautiful and, to me,
significant names lead as prosaic lives as we of New England. In
though we saw and heard of but this one. Ask the inhabitants
respecting any stream, if there is a fall on it, and they will
perchance tell you of something as interesting as Bashpish or the
writing what was otherwise unintelligible. The geography getting
thenceforward went on swimmingly, by turns handling the chalk and
long-handled griddle, and commenced a series of revolutions and
flannel, and homespun, or _petite etoffe_.
place,"--a right which, however, is said to be seldom exercised.
churches," etc.,--a tax to which they are not subject if the
The population which we had seen the last two days--I mean the
reluctance of the seigniors and peasants. It has been observed by
contrary, that the French in Canada, in many respects, follow the
savages who should be brought to the knowledge of the faith, and
disappearing in what is called the Saxon current.
selling strong water, and collecting its furs, and converting its
heroic missionary with the _eau d'immortalite_. It was freedom to
There was apparently a greater equality of condition among the
regarded as a poor man.
 From McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary we learn that
across; yet the wind was not to be compared with that of the day
believe that I was the only visitor then in the city who got in
beside the common garden flowers, the usual complement of cannon
In short, I observed everywhere the most perfect arrangements for
The citadel of Quebec says, "I _will_ live here, and you shan't
prevent me." To which you return, that you have not the slightest
abandoning the wall around the Upper Town, and confining the
fortifications to the citadel of forty acres. Of course they will
fortifications in my mind with the dismantled Spanish forts to be
government of the country? The inhabitants of California succeed
assault the citadel! Why, I should as soon expect to find the
You might venture to advertise this farm as well fenced with
substantial stone walls (saying nothing about the eight hundred
Highlanders and Royal Irish who are required to keep them from
principal exports must be _gun_ny bags, verdigris, and iron rust.
It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the
citizen, probably a rebel, there,--certainly if he were already a
bottles, and then asked for a bill of fare; was told to walk up
continually coming and going with their motley crews and cargoes,
crookneck seeds should be such as had grown in Canada.
Too much has not been said about the scenery of Quebec. The
history, sees the level lines of the citadel amid the cloud-built
The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St.
appeared in 1570,--in which the famous cities of "Norumbega" and
explorers declared that the summer in that country was as warm as
explorers saw many whales and other sea-monsters far up the St.
blancs_." Several whales have been taken pretty high up the river
hundred and five (?) miles wide. According to Captain Bayfield's
broadest estuary of the South American rivers, is ninety-two
waterfalls."
describe. But we merely slept and woke again to find that we had
permitted to be awake in the scenery of a dream. Many vivacious
Lombardy poplars along the distant shores gave them a novel and
remarkably high wall and higher monument. The family returned to
Europe. He could not have imagined how dead he would be in a few
extensive island; the noble sea of the St. Lawrence swelling into
the southwest," toward that land whither Donnacona had told the
Within the circuit of this plodding life,
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered, when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Its own memorial,--purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter's task again.
seasons, our interest would never tire. Much more is adoing than
cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a
political organization. On this side all lands present only the
circumstances. The spruce, the hemlock, and the pine will not
pleasure, the sources of the myriad sounds which crowd the summer
"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada,
For on the tops of the trees,
Drinking a little dew,
Like any king thou singest,
For thine are they all,
Whatever thou seest in the fields,
And whatever the woods bear.
Thou art the friend of the husbandmen,
In no respect injuring any one;
And thou art honored among men,
Sweet prophet of summer.
The Muses love thee,
And Phoebus himself loves thee,
And has given thee a shrill song;
Age does not wrack thee,
Thou skillful, earthborn, song-loving,
Unsuffering, bloodless one;
Almost thou art like the gods."
Alternate with these if you can.
His steady sails he never furls
At any time o' year,
And perching now on Winter's curls,
He whistles in his ear.
As the spring advances, and the ice is melting in the river, our
Behold, how, Spring appearing,
The Graces send forth roses;
Behold, how the wave of the sea
Is made smooth by the calm;
Behold, how the duck dives;
Behold, how the crane travels;
And Titan shines constantly bright.
The shadows of the clouds are moving;
The works of man shine;
The earth puts forth fruits;
The fruit of the olive puts forth.
The cup of Bacchus is crowned,
Along the leaves, along the branches,
The fruit, bending them down, flourishes.
feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic
expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over
Each summer sound
Is a summer round.
response and expression for every mood in the depths of the wood.
Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion,
Or brazen trump of the impatient jay,
And in secluded woods the chickadee
Doles out her scanty notes, which sing the praise
Of heroes, and set forth the loveliness
Of virtue evermore.
The phoebe still sings in harmony with the sultry weather by the
Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays
The vireo rings the changes sweet,
During the trivial summer days,
Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.
congregate; you may stand and count them as they fly low and
straggling over the landscape, singly or by twos and threes, at
intervals of half a mile, until a hundred have passed.
Thou dusky spirit of the wood,
Bird of an ancient brood,
Flitting thy lonely way,
A meteor in the summer's day,
From wood to wood, from hill to hill,
Low over forest, field, and rill,
What wouldst thou say?
Why shouldst thou haunt the day?
What makes thy melancholy float?
What bravery inspires thy throat,
And bears thee up above the clouds,
Over desponding human crowds,
Which far below
Lay thy haunts low?
The late walker or sailor, in the October evenings, may hear the
murmurings of the snipe, circling over the meadows, the most
It appears from the Report that there are about forty quadrupeds
years in this vicinity. Among the rivers which empty into the
In the fall, if a meadow intervene between their burrows and the
around their lodges in the spring.
The Penobscot Indian wears the entire skin of a muskrat, with the
The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have
When I see a fox run across the pond on the snow, with the
carelessness of freedom, or at intervals trace his course in the
expression that it would not be quite inaudible at any distance.
I have experienced such simple delight in the trivial matters of
"Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud?"
Early in the spring, after the ice has melted, is the time for
fence.
I see the civil sun drying earth's tears,
Her tears of joy, which only faster flow.
The river swelleth more and more,
Like some sweet influence stealing o'er
The passive town; and for a while
Each tussock makes a tiny isle,
Where, on some friendly Ararat,
Resteth the weary water-rat.
No ripple shows Musketaquid,
Her very current e'en is hid,
As deepest souls do calmest rest
When thoughts are swelling in the breast,
And she that in the summer's drought
Doth make a rippling and a rout,
Sleeps from Nahshawtuck to the Cliff,
Unruffled by a single skiff.
But by a thousand distant hills
The louder roar a thousand rills,
And many a stream with smothered hum,
Doth swifter well and faster glide,
Though buried deep beneath the tide.
Our village shows a rural Venice,
Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is;
As lovely as the Bay of Naples
Yon placid cove amid the maples;
And in my neighbor's field of corn
I recognize the Golden Horn.
Here Nature taught from year to year,
When only red men came to hear,--
Methinks 't was in this school of art
Venice and Naples learned their part;
But still their mistress, to my mind,
Her young disciples leaves behind.
distinctness, and he enjoys the opportunity which so many have
especially the perch, which, his dark bands being exaggerated,
purveyor has been there before me; my most delicate experience is
hoar-frost as is very uncommon here or anywhere, and whose full
winter forever, is waiting to be filled.
This foliate structure is common to the coral and the plumage of
As confirmation of the fact that vegetation is but a kind of
crystallization, every one may observe how, upon the edge of the
In the Report on the Invertebrate Animals, this singular fact is
That common mussel, the _Unio complanatus_, or more properly
_fluviatilis_, left in the spring by the muskrat upon rocks and
The works we have placed at the head of our chapter, with as much
perfect Indian wisdom.
 _Reports--on the Fishes, Reptiles, and Birds; the Herbaceous
 This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is
The needles of the pine
All to the west incline.
Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the
With frontier strength ye stand your ground,
With grand content ye circle round,
Tumultuous silence for all sound,
Ye distant nursery of rills,
Monadnock, and the Peterboro' hills;
Like some vast fleet,
Sailing through rain and sleet,
Through winter's cold and summer's heat;
Still holding on, upon your high emprise,
Until ye find a shore amid the skies;
Not skulking close to land,
With cargo contraband,
For they who sent a venture out by ye
Their honesty.
Ships of the line, each one,
Ye to the westward run,
Always before the gale,
Under a press of sail,
With weight of metal all untold.
I seem to feel ye, in my firm seat here,
Immeasurable depth of hold,
And breadth of beam, and length of running gear.
Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure
In your novel western leisure;
So cool your brows, and freshly blue,
As Time had nought for ye to do;
For ye lie at your length,
An unappropriated strength,
Unhewn primeval timber,
For knees so stiff, for masts so limber;
The stock of which new earths are made
One day to be our western trade,
Fit for the stanchions of a world
Which through the seas of space is hurled.
While we enjoy a lingering ray,
Ye still o'ertop the western day,
Reposing yonder, on God's croft,
Like solid stacks of hay.
Edged with silver, and with gold,
The clouds hang o'er in damask fold,
And with such depth of amber light
The west is dight,
Where still a few rays slant,
That even heaven seems extravagant.
On the earth's edge mountains and trees
Stand as they were on air graven,
Or as the vessels in a haven
Await the morning breeze.
I fancy even
Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven;
And yonder still, in spite of history's page,
Linger the golden and the silver age;
Upon the laboring gale
The news of future centuries is brought,
And of new dynasties of thought,
From your remotest vale.
But special I remember thee,
Wachusett, who like me
Standest alone without society.
Thy far blue eye,
A remnant of the sky,
Seen through the clearing or the gorge
Or from the windows of the forge,
Doth leaven all it passes by.
Nothing is true,
But stands 'tween me and you,
Thou western pioneer,
Who know'st not shame nor fear
By venturous spirit driven,
Under the eaves of heaven.
And canst expand thee there,
And breathe enough of air?
Upholding heaven, holding down earth,
Thy pastime from thy birth,
Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other;
May I approve myself thy worthy brother!
wayfarer; or in September, when the women and children, and the
inhabitants; not _Way_-tatic, _Way_-chusett, but _Wor_-tatic,
We could get no further into the Aeneid than
-- atque altae moenia Romae,
-- and the wall of high Rome,
"He shook honey from the leaves, and removed fire,
And stayed the wine, everywhere flowing in rivers;
That experience, by meditating, might invent various arts
By degrees, and seek the blade of corn in furrows,
And strike out hidden fire from the veins of the flint."
"The sultry sun had gained the middle sky,
And not a tree, and not an herb was nigh,"
"Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way."
occasion to remember the small, drooping, bell-like flowers and
At intervals we heard the murmuring of water, and the slumberous
mountain-ash intermingled, among which we found the bright blue
"And he had lain beside his asses,
On lofty Cheviot Hills:
"And he had trudged through Yorkshire dales,
Among the rocks and winding _scars_;
Where deep and low the hamlets lie
Beneath their little patch of sky
And little lot of stars."
Who knows but this hill may one day be a Helvellyn, or even a
Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head
Above the field, so late from nature won,
With patient brow reserved, as one who read
New annals in the history of man.
visible, and numerous sheets of water were brought to light.
"Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,
Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae."
And now the tops of the villas smoke afar off,
And the shadows fall longer from the high mountains.
things for the statesman and philosopher. The improvements of
features in common. There is an unexpected refinement about this
confused material of thought, and we found ourselves mechanically
"Sweavens are swift, sayd lyttle John,
As the wind blows over the hill;
For if it be never so loud this night,
To-morrow it may be still."
"His shoote it was but loosely shott,
Yet flewe not the arrowe in vaine,
For it mett one of the sheriffe's men,
And William a Trent was slaine."
Leaving the Nashua, we changed our route a little, and arrived at
Under the one word "house" are included the schoolhouse, the
Hospitality shining afar in all countries, as well Mahometan and
Who has not imagined to himself a country inn, where the traveler
beast." At three miles he passes a cheerless barrack, standing
In these retired places the tavern is first of all a
inhabitant of the land to him a stranger, and represent its human
"A semely man our Hoste was, with alle,
For to han been a marshal in an halle.
A large man he was, with eyen stepe;
A fairer burgeis was ther non in Chepe:
Bold of his speche, and wise, and well ytaught,
And of manhood him lacked righte naught.
Eke thereto was he right a mery man,
And after souper plaien he began,
And spake of mirthe amonges other thinges,
Whan that we hadden made our reckoninges."
He is the true house-band, and centre of the company,--of greater
proposes that each shall tell a tale to while away the time to
"Now, by my fader's soule that is ded,
But ye be mery, smiteth of my hed:
Hold up your hondes withouten more speche."
exempted from taxation and military duty.
The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or puffed with
We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter
Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift fall in, and step
The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell,
The stiffened air exploring in the dawn,
And making slow acquaintance with the day
Delaying now upon its heavenward course,
In wreathed loiterings dallying with itself,
With as uncertain purpose and slow deed
As its half-wakened master by the hearth,
Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts
Have not yet swept into the onward current
Of the new day;--and now it streams afar,
The while the chopper goes with step direct,
And mind intent to swing the early axe.
First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad
His early scout, his emissary, smoke,
The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof,
To feel the frosty air, inform the day;
And while he crouches still beside the hearth,
Nor musters courage to unbar the door,
It has gone down the glen with the light wind,
And o'er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath,
Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill,
And warmed the pinions of the early bird;
And now, perchance, high in the crispy air,
Has caught sight of the day o'er the earth's edge,
And greets its master's eye at his low door,
As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.
The sun at length rises through the distant woods, as if with the
respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All
followed us into that by-place.
gathered the robin and the lark.
At length, having reached the edge of the woods, and shut out the
In this glade covered with bushes of a year's growth, see how the
distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a
Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.
"The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants."
The gray squirrel and rabbit are brisk and playful in the remote
As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected by the
perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the
After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not deform the scene.
Already the birds resort to it, to build their nests, and you may
scarred edges and veins is its log rolled up.
scenery, and as momentous as the conquest of kingdoms.
When Winter fringes every bough
With his fantastic wreath,
And puts the seal of silence now
Upon the leaves beneath;
When every stream in its penthouse
Goes gurgling on its way,
And in his gallery the mouse
Nibbleth the meadow hay;
Methinks the summer still is nigh,
And lurketh underneath,
As that same meadow mouse doth lie
Snug in that last year's heath.
And if perchance the chickadee
Lisp a faint note anon,
The snow is summer's canopy,
Which she herself put on.
Fair blossoms deck the cheerful trees,
And dazzling fruits depend;
The north wind sighs a summer breeze,
The nipping frosts to fend,
Bringing glad tidings unto me,
The while I stand all ear,
Of a serene eternity,
Which need not winter fear.
Out on the silent pond straightway
The restless ice doth crack,
And pond sprites merry gambols play
Amid the deafening rack.
Eager I hasten to the vale,
As if I heard brave news,
How nature held high festival,
Which it were hard to lose.
I gambol with my neighbor ice,
And sympathizing quake,
As each new crack darts in a trice
Across the gladsome lake.
One with the cricket in the ground,
Resounds the rare domestic sound
Along the forest path.
easiest passage.
In winter, nature is a cabinet of curiosities, full of dried
specimens, in their natural order and position. The meadows and
thought that rivers would be empty and dry in midwinter, or else
frozen solid till the spring thawed them; but their volume is not
Far over the ice, between the hemlock woods and snow-clad hills,
"Drooping the lab'rer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and _now_ demands
The fruit of all his toil."
cheerful snow. Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid
"The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole."
Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a
Therefore, it would seem that I have some title to speak to you
attention, for the few moments that are allotted me, to a purely
scientific subject.
When, hereabouts, a single forest tree or a forest springs up
extensive and regular.
asserting that they come from seeds, though the mode of their
centuries, or perhaps been called into activity by the heat of a
planted and raised.
regularly planted each year by various quadrupeds and birds.
In this neighborhood, where oaks and pines are about equally
dispersed, if you look through the thickest pine wood, even the
seemingly unmixed pitch pine ones, you will commonly detect many
thither, but which are overshadowed and choked by the pines. The
immediately spring up to trees.
I affirmed this confidently many years ago, and an occasional
creation. If the squirrel was killed, or neglected its deposit, a
still.
After seven or eight years, the hard woods evidently find such a
locality unfavorable to their growth, the pines being allowed to
stand. As an evidence of this, I observed a diseased red maple
oaks,"--"an abstract of the practice adopted by the government
I think that I may venture to say that every white pine cone that
The nuts thus left on the surface, or buried just beneath it, are
gathered, with the husk on, and the heap should be turned over
frequently in the course of the winter."
instances of this kind. How commonly in the fall you see the
disseminating forest trees and other nuciferous and hard-seeded
vegetables on which they feed. Their chief employment during the
autumnal season is foraging to supply their winter stores. In
replant all the cleared lands."
states that "very few acorns of any species will germinate after
having been kept a year," that beech mast "only retains its vital
Several men of science, Dr. Carpenter among them, have used the
inland in Maine.
extinct plants, it occurred to me last fall that some new or rare
unearthed it. A little mysterious hoeing and manuring was all the
perchance sprung from America at first, and returned to it with
ancestors did here and in France.
It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers,
fourth estate, outside of Church and State and People.
We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble
"When he came to grene wode,
In a mery mornynge,
There he herde the notes small
Of byrdes mery syngynge.
"It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,
That I was last here;
Me lyste a lytell for to shote
At the donne dere."
that--sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields,
How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men,
evening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just
But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking
accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions.
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would
groves and walks of Platanes," where they took _subdiales
something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a
quite familiar to you.
I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles,
commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without
Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk
Where they once dug for money,
But never found any;
Where sometimes Martial Miles
Singly files,
I fear for no good:
No other man,
O man of wild habits,
Partridges and rabbits,
Who hast no cares
Only to set snares,
Who liv'st all alone,
Close to the bone,
And where life is sweetest
Constantly eatest.
When the spring stirs my blood
With the instinct to travel,
I can get enough gravel
Nobody repairs it,
For nobody wears it;
It is a living way,
As the Christians say.
Not many there be
Who enter therein,
Only the guests of the
What is it, what is it,
But a direction out there,
And the bare possibility
Of going somewhere?
Great guide-boards of stone,
But travelers none;
Cenotaphs of the towns
Named on their crowns.
It is worth going to see
Where you _might_ be.
What king
Did the thing,
I am still wondering;
Set up how or when,
By what selectmen,
They're a great endeavor
To be something forever;
Blank tablets of stone,
Where a traveler might groan,
And in one sentence
Grave all that is known;
Which another might read,
In his extreme need.
I know one or two
Lines that would do,
Literature that might stand
All over the land,
Which a man could remember
Till next December,
And read again in the spring,
After the thawing.
If with fancy unfurled
You leave your abode,
You may go round the world
settle,--varies a few degrees, and does not always point due
southwest or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go
thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western
wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and
shoreless sea." It is unmitigated East where they live.
We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and
I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of
particular chip, with its tail raised for a sail, and bridging
estate here, and, if I were a broker, I should probably take that
"Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken strange strondes."
paradise, appear to have been the Great West of the ancients,
"And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay;
At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue;
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."
confirm his observations. Humboldt came to America to realize his
described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes
To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, _Ex Oriente lux; ex
Occidente_ FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit.
Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a Governor-General of
broader." This statement will do at least to set against Buffon's
without fear of wild beasts.
thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our
sky,--our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our
To Americans I hardly need to say,--
"Westward the star of empire takes its way."
Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England;
though we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the
Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I
Cliff,--still thinking more of the future than of the past or
displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.
Ben Jonson exclaims,--
"How near to good is what is fair!"
So I would say,--
How near to good is what is _wild_!
steppes of Tartary say, "On reentering cultivated lands, the
agitation, perplexity, and turmoil of civilization oppressed and
Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the
Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.
thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scriptures and
English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake
Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare,
surrounding Nature.
The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The
present,--the poets of the world will be inspired by American
mythology.
knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos
I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native
anger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear
Useful Knowledge treats its cattle.
commonly.
"Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen,
And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms,
Traveler of the windy glens,
Why hast thou left my ear so soon?"
I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the
thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see
recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to
recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their
cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I
should move out of Concord.
We hug the earth,--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate
before,--so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have
The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all
driving us home at evening.
"But see the fading many-colored woods
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark;"
and in the line in which he speaks of
"Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods."
October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.
By the twentieth of August, everywhere in woods and swamps we are
spreading panicle of purple flowers, a shallow, purplish mist
commonly of a sober and humble color.
With its beautiful purple blush it reminds me, and supplies the
In most plants the corolla or calyx is the part which attains the
flower-like sepals, all on the same plant.
excites me like that of the poke-weed stems.
Think what refuge there is for one, before August is over, from
Wherever I walk these afternoons, the purple-fingered grass also
presidency of the andropogons.
leaves. These bright standards are now advanced on the distant
hillsides, not in large armies, but in scattered troops or single
By the twenty-fifth of September, the red maples generally are
The whole tree thus ripening in advance of its fellows attains a
beauty of some meadowy vale, and the expression of the whole
surrounding forest is at once more spirited for it.
neglected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the
virtue which belongs to a maple, by a steady growth for so many
clear. Its _virtues_, not its sins, are as scarlet.
yellow, scarlet, and crimson fires, of all tints, mingled and
As I go across a meadow directly toward a low rising ground this
By the sixth of October the leaves generally begin to fall, in
successive showers, after frost or rain; but the principal
_Lycopodium lucidulum_ looks suddenly greener amid them. In dense
wooded, large fleets of leaves are floating on its surface, as it
lofty prows and poops, like the stately vessels of the ancients,
What wholesome herb drinks are to be had in the swamps now! What
It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and
scarlet cheeks. Yet, standing on the east side of the Common just
straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called sugar
steadily drinking in this color, and by these teachers even the
shops and city windows. It is a pity that we have no more _red_
paint-boxes as we do, we might supply these natural colors to the
commerce,--chocolate, lemon, coffee, cinnamon, claret? (shall we
cabinet-keepers, virtuosos, and maids-of-honor,--to the Nabobs,
chromatic nomenclature.
But of much more importance than a knowledge of the names and
congregation of wearied woodchoppers, or of proprietors come to
No annual training or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its
A village needs these innocent stimulants of bright and cheering
prospects to keep off melancholy and superstition. Show me two
What meant the fathers by establishing this _perfectly living_
institution before the church,--this institution which needs no
"Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Themselves from God they could not free;
They _planted_ better than they knew;--
The conscious _trees_ to beauty grew."
Or bring one home, and study it closely at your leisure, by the
leaves, that they might learn to draw firmly and gracefully.
archipelago.
But it requires a particular alertness, if not devotion to these
phenomena, to appreciate the wide-spread, but late and unexpected
prospects. It is remarkable that the latest bright color that is
comparatively (created for the near-sighted, who walk amid the
impounded herbs?
beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to
heads,--and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical
knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at
objects!
corn-fields. The sportsman trains himself, dresses, and watches
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is
It appears that apples made a part of the food of that unknown
shriveled crab-apple has been recovered from their stores.
Niebuhr observes that "the words for a house, a field, a plow,
plowing, wine, oil, milk, sheep, apples, and others relating to
considered a symbol of peace no less than the olive.
Theophrastus knew and described the apple tree as a botanist.
The apple tree (_Pyrus malus_) belongs chiefly to the northern
indigenous in North America. The cultivated apple tree was first
Not only the Indian, but many indigenous insects, birds, and
quadrupeds, welcomed the apple tree to these shores. The tent
"At Michaelmas time, or a little before,
Half an apple goes to the core."
A week or two later, as you are going by orchards or gardens,
There is thus about all natural products a certain volatile and
ethereal quality which represents their highest value, and which
There is another thinning of the fruit, commonly near the end of
people are busy picking up the windfalls, and this will make them
It would be well, if we accepted these gifts with more joy and
Devonshire take a large bowl of cider, with a toast in it, and
'Here's to thee, old apple tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! caps-full!
Bushel, bushel, sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra!'"
"Stand fast, root! bear well, top!
Pray God send us a good howling crop:
Every twig, apples big;
Every bough, apples enow!"
Herrick sings,--
"Wassaile the trees that they may beare
You many a plum and many a peare;
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you so give them wassailing."
experience, such ravages have been made!
Going up the side of a cliff about the first of November, I saw a
When I go by this shrub thus late and hardy, and see its dangling
sometimes run wild and maintain themselves.
cultivation." It is found from western New York to Minnesota, and
encroaching grass and some other dangers, at first.
In two years' time 't had thus
Reached the level of the rocks,
Admired the stretching world,
Nor feared the wandering flocks.
But at this tender age
Its sufferings began:
There came a browsing ox
And cut it down a span.
brought you here brought me," he nevertheless browses it again,
reflecting, it may be, that he has some title to it.
thorniness, however, there is no malice, only some malic acid.
lichens, and you see thousands of little trees just springing up
between them, with the seed still attached to them.
The cows continue to browse them thus for twenty years or more,
Thus the cows create their own shade and food; and the tree, its
hour-glass being inverted, lives a second life, as it were.
In spite of wandering kine, and other adverse circumstances, that
memorable varieties than both of them.
perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and
"highest plot
To plant the Bergamot."
The time for wild apples is the last of October and the first of
children as wild as themselves,--to certain active boys that I
What if some of these wildings are acrid and puckery, genuine
_verjuice_, do they not still belong to the _Pomaceae_, which are
out-of-doors.
labeled, "To be eaten in the wind."
atmosphere, who knows but you could whistle an octave higher and
clearer?
flattened and tamed.
"Nor is it every apple I desire,
Nor that which pleases every palate best;
'Tis not the lasting Deuxan I require,
Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request,
Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife,
Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife:
No, no! bring me an apple from the tree of life."
So there is one _thought_ for the field, another for the house. I
stem-dimple to the blossom end, like meridional lines, on a
house.
There is, first of all, the Wood Apple (_Malus sylvatica_); the
Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods
"Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,
An iron voice, could I describe all the forms
And reckon up all the names of these _wild apples_."
By the middle of November the wild apples have lost some of their
carries home his apples. He says,--"His meat is apples, worms, or
state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Others, which have more
It is a fruit never carried to market, that I am aware of,--quite
"Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers....
Chancing to take a memorable walk by moonlight some years ago, I
According to Pliny, there is a stone in Arabia called Selenites,
Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not
beauty awake while they are asleep,--if I add to the domains of
poetry.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day. I soon
shutter, occasionally. Why not walk a little way in her light?
unnoticed?
naturally reproached or nicknamed as moonshine by such. They are
reaches me from the star of least magnitude. Stars are lesser or
inhabitants. "The moon gravitates toward the earth, and the earth
Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different
frogs, and the intenser dream of crickets. But above all, the
"not believe that the great architect
With all these fires the heavenly arches decked
Only for show, and with these glistering shields,
T' awake poor shepherds, watching in the fields."
He'll "not believe that the least flower which pranks
Our garden borders, or our common banks,
And the least stone, that in her warming lap
Our mother earth doth covetously wrap,
Hath some peculiar virtue of its own,
And that the glorious stars of heav'n have none."
expressed: "_Sapiens adjuvabit opus astrorum quemadmodum agricola
"gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime."
Diana still hunts in the New England sky.
"In Heaven queen she is among the spheres.
She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.
Eternity in her oft change she bears;
She Beauty is; by her the fair endure.
"Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed;
By her the virtues of the stars down slide;
By her is Virtue's perfect image cast."
conservative. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so savage!
"In such a night let me abroad remain
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again."
glaring.
When Ossian, in his address to the sun, exclaims,--
"Where has darkness its dwelling?
Where is the cavernous home of the stars,
When thou quickly followest their steps,
Pursuing them like a hunter in the sky,--
Thou climbing the lofty hills,
They descending on barren mountains?"
KRATOS _and_ BIA (Strength and Force).
_Kr._ We are come to the far-bounding plain of earth,
To the Scythian way, to the unapproached solitude.
Hephaistus, orders must have thy attention,
Which the Father has enjoined on thee, this bold one
To the high-hanging rocks to bind
In indissoluble fetters of adamantine bonds.
For thy flower, the splendor of fire useful in all arts,
Stealing, he bestowed on mortals; and for such
A crime 't is fit he should give satisfaction to the gods;
That he may learn the tyranny of Zeus
To love, and cease from his man-loving ways.
_Heph._ Kratos and Bia, your charge from Zeus
Already has its end, and nothing further in the way;
But I cannot endure to bind
A kindred god by force to a bleak precipice,--
Yet absolutely there's necessity that I have courage for
these things;
For it is hard the Father's words to banish.
High-plotting son of the right-counseling Themis,
Unwilling thee unwilling in brazen fetters hard to be loosed
I am about to nail to this inhuman hill,
Where neither voice [you'll hear], nor form of any mortal
See, but, scorched by the sun's clear flame,
Will change your color's bloom; and to you glad
The various-robed night will conceal the light,
And sun disperse the morning frost again;
And always the burden of the present ill
For a god, not shrinking from the wrath of gods,
You have bestowed honors on mortals more than just,
For which this pleasureless rock you'll sentinel,
Standing erect, sleepless, not bending a knee;
And many sighs and lamentations to no purpose
Will you utter; for the mind of Zeus is hard to be changed;
And he is wholly rugged who may newly rule.
_Kr._ Well, why dost thou delay and pity in vain?
Why not hate the god most hostile to gods,
Who has betrayed thy prize to mortals?
_Heph._ The affinity indeed is appalling, and the familiarity.
_Kr._ I agree, but to disobey the Father's words
How is it possible? Fear you not this more?
_Heph._ Ay, you are always without pity, and full of confidence.
_Kr._ For 't is no remedy to bewail this one;
Cherish not vainly troubles which avail naught.
_Heph._ O much hated handicraft!
_Kr._ Why hatest it? for in simple truth, for these misfortunes
Which are present now Art's not to blame.
_Heph._ Yet I would 't had fallen to another's lot.
_Kr._ All things were done but to rule the gods,
For none is free but Zeus.
_Heph._ I knew it, and have naught to say against these things.
_Kr._ Will you not haste, then, to put the bonds about him,
That the Father may not observe you loitering?
_Heph._ Already at hand the shackles you may see.
_Kr._ Taking them, about his hands with firm strength
Strike with the hammer, and nail him to the rocks.
_Heph._ 'T is done, and not in vain this work.
_Kr._ Strike harder, tighten, nowhere relax,
For he is skillful to find out ways e'en from the impracticable.
_Heph._ Ay, but this arm is fixed inextricably.
_Kr._ And this now clasp securely, that
He may learn he is a duller schemer than is Zeus.
_Heph._ Except him would none justly blame me.
_Kr._ Now with an adamantine wedge's stubborn fang
Through the breasts nail strongly.
_Heph._ Alas! alas! Prometheus, I groan for thy afflictions.
_Kr._ And do you hesitate? for Zeus' enemies
Do you groan? Beware lest one day you yourself will pity.
_Heph._ You see a spectacle hard for eyes to behold.
_Kr._ I see him meeting his deserts;
But round his sides put straps.
_Heph._ To do this is necessity, insist not much.
_Kr._ Surely I will insist and urge beside;
Go downward, and the thighs surround with force.
_Heph._ Already it is done, the work, with no long labor.
_Kr._ Strongly now drive the fetters, through and through,
For the critic of the works is difficult.
_Heph._ Like your form your tongue speaks.
_Kr._ Be thou softened, but for my stubbornness
Of temper and harshness reproach me not.
_Heph._ Let us withdraw, for he has a net about his limbs.
_Kr._ There now insult, and the shares of gods
Plundering on ephemerals bestow; what thee
Can mortals in these ills relieve?
Falsely thee the divinities Prometheus
Call; for you yourself need one _foreseeing_
In what manner you will escape this fortune.
PROMETHEUS, _alone_.
O divine ether, and ye swift-winged winds,
Fountains of rivers, and countless smilings
Of the ocean waves, and earth, mother of all,
And thou all-seeing orb of the sun I call.
Behold me what a god I suffer at the hands of gods.
See by what outrages
Tormented the myriad-yeared
Time I shall endure; such the new
Ruler of the blessed has contrived for me,
Unseemly bonds.
Alas! alas! the present and the coming
Woe I groan; where ever of these sufferings
Must an end appear.
But what say I? I know beforehand all,
Exactly what will be, nor to me strange
Will any evil come. The destined fate
As easily as possible it behooves to bear, knowing
Necessity's is a resistless strength.
But neither to be silent nor unsilent about this
Lot is possible for me; for a gift to mortals
Giving, I wretched have been yoked to these necessities;
Within a hollow reed by stealth I carry off fire's
Stolen source, which seemed the teacher
Of all art to mortals, and a great resource.
For such crimes penalty I pay,
Under the sky, riveted in chains.
Ah! ah! alas! alas!
What echo, what odor has flown to me obscure,
Of god, or mortal, or else mingled,--
Came it to this terminal hill
A witness of my sufferings, or wishing what?
Behold bound me an unhappy god,
The enemy of Zeus, fallen under
The ill will of all the gods, as many as
Enter into the hall of Zeus,
Through too great love of mortals.
Alas! alas! what fluttering do I hear
Of birds near? for the air rustles
With the soft rippling of wings.
Everything to me is fearful which creeps this way.
_Ch._ Fear nothing; for friendly this band
Of wings with swift contention
Drew to this hill, hardly
Persuading the paternal mind.
The swift-carrying breezes sent me;
For the echo of beaten steel pierced the recesses
Of the caves, and struck out from me reserved modesty;
And I rushed unsandaled in a winged chariot.
_Pr._ Alas! alas! alas! alas!
Offspring of the fruitful Tethys,
And of him rolling around all
The earth with sleepless stream children,
Of Father Ocean; behold, look on me;
By what bonds embraced
On this cliff's topmost rocks
I shall maintain unenvied watch.
_Ch._ I see, Prometheus; but to my eyes a fearful
Mist has come surcharged
With tears, looking upon thy body
Shrunk to the rocks
By these mischiefs of adamantine bonds;
Indeed, new helmsmen rule Olympus;
And with new laws Zeus strengthens himself, annulling the old,
And the before great now makes unknown.
_Pr._ Would that under earth, and below Hades,
Receptacle of dead, to impassable
Tartarus he had sent me, to bonds indissoluble
Cruelly conducting, that neither god
Nor any other had rejoiced at this.
But now the sport of winds, unhappy one,
A source of pleasure to my foes, I suffer.
_Ch._ Who so hard-hearted
Of the gods, to whom these things are pleasant?
Who does not sympathize with thy
Misfortunes, excepting Zeus? for he in wrath always
Fixing his stubborn mind,
Afflicts the heavenly race;
Nor will he cease, until his heart is sated;
Or with some palm some one may take the power hard to be taken.
_Pr._ Surely yet, though in strong
Fetters I am now maltreated,
The ruler of the blessed will have need of me,
To show the new conspiracy by which
He's robbed of sceptre and of honors,
And not at all me with persuasion's honey-tongued
Charms will he appease, nor ever,
Shrinking from his firm threats, will I
Declare this, till from cruel
Bonds he may release, and to do justice
For this outrage be willing.
_Ch._ You are bold; and to bitter
Woes do nothing yield,
But too freely speak.
But my mind piercing fear disturbs;
For I'm concerned about thy fortunes,
Where at length arriving you may see
An end to these afflictions. For manners
Inaccessible, and a heart hard to be dissuaded has the son
_Pr._ I know, that--Zeus is stern and having
Justice to himself. But after all
Gentle-minded
He will one day be, when thus he's crushed,
And his stubborn wrath allaying,
Into agreement with me and friendliness
Earnest to me earnest he at length will come.
_Ch._ The whole account disclose and tell us plainly,
In what crime taking you Zeus
Thus disgracefully and bitterly insults;
Inform us, if you are nowise hurt by the recital.
_Pr._ Painful indeed it is to me to tell these things,
And a pain to be silent, and every way unfortunate.
When first the divinities began their strife,
And discord 'mong themselves arose,
Some wishing to cast Kronos from his seat,
That Zeus might reign, forsooth, others the contrary
Striving, that Zeus might never rule the gods;
Then I, the best advising, to persuade
The Titans, sons of Uranus and Chthon,
Unable was; but crafty stratagems
Despising with rude minds,
They thought without trouble to rule by force;
But to me my mother not once only, Themis,
And Gaea, of many names one form,
How the future should be accomplished had foretold,
That not by power nor by strength
Would it be necessary, but by craft the victors should prevail.
Such I in words expounding,
They deigned not to regard at all.
The best course, therefore, of those occurring then
Appeared to be, taking my mother to me,
Of my own accord to side with Zeus glad to receive me;
And by my counsels Tartarus' black-pitted
Depths conceals the ancient Kronos,
With his allies. In such things by me
The tyrant of the gods having been helped,
With base rewards like these repays me;
For there is somehow in kingship
This disease, not to trust its friends.
What then you ask, for what cause
He afflicts me, this will I now explain.
As soon as on his father's throne
He sat, he straightway to the gods distributes honors,
Some to one and to another some, and arranged
The government; but of unhappy mortals account
Had none; but blotting out the race
Entire, wished to create another new.
And these things none opposed but I,
But I adventured; I rescued mortals
From going destroyed to Hades.
Therefore, indeed, with such afflictions am I bent,
To suffer grievous, and piteous to behold,
And, holding mortals up to pity, myself am not
Thought worthy to obtain it; but without pity
Am I thus corrected, a spectacle inglorious to Zeus.
_Ch._ Of iron heart and made of stone,
Whoe'er, Prometheus, with thy sufferings
Does not grieve; for I should not have wished to see
These things, and having seen them I am grieved at heart.
_Pr._ Indeed to friends I'm piteous to behold.
_Ch._ Did you in no respect go beyond this?
_Pr._ True, mortals I made cease foreseeing fate.
_Ch._ Having found what remedy for this all?
_Pr._ Blind hopes in them I made to dwell.
_Ch._ A great advantage this you gave to men.
_Pr._ Beside these, too, I bestowed on them fire.
_Ch._ And have mortals flamy fire?
_Pr._ From which, indeed, they will learn many arts.
_Ch._ Upon such charges, then, does Zeus
Maltreat you, and nowhere relax from ills?
Is there no term of suffering lying before thee?
_Pr._ Nay, none at all, but when to him it may seem good.
_Ch._ And how will it seem good? What hope? See you not that
You have erred? But how you've erred, for me to tell
Not pleasant, and to you a pain. But these things
Let us omit, and seek you some release from sufferings.
_Pr._ Easy, whoever out of trouble holds his
Foot, to admonish and remind those faring
Ill. But all these things I knew;
Willing, willing I erred, I'll not deny;
Mortals assisting I myself found trouble.
Not indeed with penalties like these thought I
That I should pine on lofty rocks,
Gaining this drear unneighbored hill.
But bewail not my present woes,
But alighting, the fortunes creeping on
Hear ye, that ye may learn all to the end.
Obey me, obey, sympathize
With him now suffering. Thus indeed affliction,
Wandering round, sits now by one, then by another.
_Ch._ Not to unwilling ears do you urge
And now with light foot the swift-rushing
Seat leaving, and the pure ether,
Path of birds, to this peaked
Ground I come; for thy misfortunes
I wish fully to hear.
_Oc._ I come to the end of a long way
Traveling to thee, Prometheus,
By my will without bits directing
This wing-swift bird;
For at thy fortunes know I grieve.
And, I think, affinity thus
Impels me, but apart from birth,
There's not to whom a higher rank
I would assign than thee.
And you will know these things as true, and not in vain
To flatter with the tongue is in me. Come, therefore,
Show how it is necessary to assist you;
For never will you say, than Ocean
There's a firmer friend to thee.
_Pr._ Alas! what now? And you, then, of my sufferings
Come spectator? How didst thou dare, leaving
The stream which bears thy name, and rock-roofed
Caves self-built, to the iron-mother
Earth to go? To behold my fate
Hast come, and to compassionate my ills?
Behold a spectacle, this, the friend of Zeus,
Having with him stablished his tyranny,
With what afflictions by himself I'm bent.
_Oc._ I see, Prometheus, and would admonish
Thee the best, although of varied craft.
Know thyself, and fit thy manners
New; for new also the king among the gods.
For if thus rude and whetted words
Thou wilt hurl out, quickly may Zeus, though sitting
Far above, hear thee, so that thy present wrath
Of troubles child's play will seem to be.
But, O wretched one, dismiss the indignation which thou hast,
And seek deliverance from these woes.
Like an old man, perhaps, I seem to thee to say these things;
Such, however, are the wages
Of the too lofty speaking tongue, Prometheus;
But thou art not yet humble, nor dost yield to ills,
And beside the present wish to receive others still.
But thou wouldst not, with my counsel,
Against the pricks extend your limbs, seeing that
A stern monarch irresponsible reigns.
And now I go, and will endeavor,
If I can, to release thee from these sufferings.
But be thou quiet, nor too rudely speak.
Know'st thou not well, with thy superior wisdom, that
On a vain tongue punishment is inflicted?
_Pr._ I congratulate thee that thou art without blame,
Having shared and dared all with me;
And now leave off, and let it not concern thee.
For altogether thou wilt not persuade him, for he's not easily
persuaded,
But take heed yourself lest you be injured by the way.
_Oc._ Far better thou art to advise those near
Than thyself; by deed and not by word I judge.
But me hastening by no means mayest thou detain,
For I boast, I boast, this favor will Zeus
Grant me, from these sufferings to release thee.
_Pr._ So far I praise thee, and will never cease;
For zeal you nothing lack. But
Strive not; for in vain, naught helping
Me, thou 'lt strive, if aught to strive you wish.
But be thou quiet, holding thyself aloof,
For I would not, though I'm unfortunate, that on this account
Evils should come to many.
_Oc._ Surely not, for me too the fortunes of thy brother
Atlas grieve, who towards the evening-places
Stands, the pillar of heaven and earth
Upon his shoulders bearing, a load not easy to be borne.
And the earth-born inhabitant of the Cilician
Caves seeing, I pitied, the savage monster
With a hundred heads, by force o'ercome,
Typhon impetuous, who stood 'gainst all the gods,
With frightful jaws hissing out slaughter;
And from his eyes flashed a Gorgonian light,
Utterly to destroy by force the sovereignty of Zeus;
But there came to him Zeus' sleepless bolt,
Descending thunder, breathing flame,
Which struck him out from lofty
Boastings. For, struck to his very heart,
His strength was scorched and thundered out.
And now a useless and extended carcass
Lies he near a narrow passage of the sea,
Pressed down under the roots of Aetna.
And on the topmost summit seated, Hephaistus
Hammers the ignited mass, whence will burst out at length
Rivers of fire, devouring with wild jaws
Fair-fruited Sicily's smooth fields;
Such rage will Typhon make boil over
With hot discharges of insatiable fire-breathing tempest,
Though by the bolt of Zeus burnt to a coal.
_Pr._ Thou art not inexperienced, nor dost want
My counsel; secure thyself as thou know'st how;
And I against the present fortune will bear up,
Until the thought of Zeus may cease from wrath.
_Oc._ Know'st thou not this, Prometheus, that
Words are healers of distempered wrath?
_Pr._ If any seasonably soothe the heart,
And swelling passion check not rudely.
_Oc._ In the consulting and the daring
What harm seest thou existing? Teach me.
_Pr._ Trouble superfluous, and light-minded folly.
_Oc._ Be this my ail then, since it is
Most profitable, being wise, not to seem wise.
_Pr._ This will seem to be my error.
_Oc._ Plainly homeward thy words remand me.
_Pr._ Aye, let not grief for me into hostility cast thee.
_Oc._ To the new occupant of the all-powerful seats?
_Pr._ Beware lest ever his heart be angered.
_Oc._ Thy fate, Prometheus, is my teacher.
_Pr._ Go thou, depart; preserve the present mind.
_Oc._ To me rushing this word you utter.
For the smooth path of the air sweeps with his wings
The four-legged bird; and gladly would
In the stalls at home bend a knee.
_Ch._ I mourn for thee thy ruinous
And tear-distilling from my tender
Eyes a stream has wet
My cheeks with flowing springs;
For these, unenvied, Zeus
By his own laws enforcing,
Haughty above the gods
That were displays his sceptre.
And every region now
With groans resounds,
Mourning the illustrious
And ancient honor
Of thee and of thy kindred;
As many mortals as the habitable seat
Of sacred Asia pasture,
With thy lamentable
Woes have sympathy;
And of the Colchian land, virgin
Inhabitants, in fight undaunted,
And Scythia's multitude, who the last
Place of earth, about
Maeotis lake possess,
And Arabia's martial flower,
And who the high-hung citadels
Of Caucasus inhabit near,
A hostile army, raging
With sharp-prowed spears.
Only one other god before, in sufferings
Subdued by injuries
Of adamantine bonds, I've seen, Titanian
Atlas, who always with superior strength
The huge and heavenly globe
On his back bears;
And with a roar the sea waves
Dashing, groans the deep,
And the dark depth of Hades murmurs underneath
The earth, and fountains of pure-running rivers
Heave a pitying sigh.
_Pr._ Think not, indeed, through weakness or through pride
That I am silent; for with the consciousness I gnaw my heart,
Seeing myself thus basely used.
And yet to these new gods their shares
Who else than I wholly distributed?
But of these things I am silent; for I should tell you
What you know; the sufferings of mortals too
You've heard, how I made intelligent
And possessed of sense them ignorant before.
But I will speak, not bearing any grudge to men,
But showing in what I gave the good intention;
At first, indeed, seeing they saw in vain,
And hearing heard not; but like the forms
Of dreams, for that long time, rashly confounded
All, nor brick-woven dwellings
Knew they, placed in the sun, nor woodwork;
But digging down they dwelt, like puny
Ants, in sunless nooks of caves.
And there was naught to them, neither of winter sign,
Nor of flower-giving spring, nor fruitful
Summer, that was sure; but without knowledge
Did they all, till I taught them the risings
Of the stars, and goings down, hard to determine.
And numbers, chief of inventions,
I found out for them, and the assemblages of letters,
And memory, Muse-mother, doer of all things;
And first I joined in pairs wild animals
Obedient to the yoke; and that they might be
Alternate workers with the bodies of men
In the severest toils, I harnessed the rein-loving horses
To the car, the ornament of over-wealthy luxury.
And none else than I invented the sea-wandering
Flaxen-winged vehicles of sailors.
Such inventions I wretched having found out
For men, myself have not the ingenuity by which
From the now present ill I may escape.
_Ch._ You suffer unseemly ill; deranged in mind
You err; and as some bad physician, falling
Sick you are dejected, and cannot find
By what remedies you may be healed.
_Pr._ Hearing the rest from me more will you wonder
What arts and what expedients I planned.
That which was greatest, if any might fall sick,
There was alleviation none, neither to eat,
Nor to anoint, nor drink, but for the want
Of medicines they were reduced to skeletons, till to them
I showed the mingling of mild remedies,
By which all ails they drive away.
And many modes of prophecy I settled,
And distinguished first of dreams what a real
Vision is required to be, and omens hard to be determined
I made known to them; and tokens by the way,
And flight of crooked-taloned birds I accurately
Defined, which lucky are,
And unlucky, and what mode of life
Have each, and to one another what
Hostilities, attachments, and assemblings;
The entrails' smoothness, and what color having
They would be to the divinities acceptable;
Of the gall and liver the various symmetry,
And the limbs concealed in fat; and the long
Flank burning, to an art hard to be guessed
I showed the way to mortals; and flammeous signs
Explained, before obscure.
Such indeed these; and under ground
Concealed the helps to men;
Brass, iron, silver, gold, who
Would affirm that he discovered before me?
None, I well know, not wishing in vain to boast.
But learn all in one word,
_All arts to mortals from Prometheus_.
_Ch._ Assist not mortals now unseasonably,
And neglect yourself unfortunate; for I
Am of good hope that, from these bonds
Released, you will yet have no less power than Zeus.
_Pr._ Never thus has Fate the Accomplisher
Decreed to fulfill these things, but by a myriad ills
And woes subdued, thus bonds I flee;
For art 's far weaker than necessity.
_Ch._ Who, then, is helmsman of necessity?
_Pr._ The Fates three-formed, and the remembering Furies.
_Ch._ Than these, then, is Zeus weaker?
_Pr._ Ay, he could not escape what has been fated.
_Ch._ But what to Zeus is fated, except always to rule?
_Pr._ This thou wilt not learn; seek not to know.
_Ch._ Surely some awful thing it is which you withhold.
_Pr._ Remember other words, for this by no means
Is it time to tell, but to be concealed
As much as possible; for keeping this do I
Escape unseemly bonds and woes.
_Ch._ Never may the all-ruling
Zeus put into my mind
Force antagonist to him.
Nor let me cease drawing near
The gods with holy sacrifices
Of slain oxen, by Father Ocean's
Ceaseless passage,
Nor offend with words,
But in me this remain
And ne'er be melted out.
'Tis something sweet with bold
Hopes the long life to
Extend, in bright
Cheerfulness the cherishing spirit.
But I shudder, thee beholding
By a myriad sufferings tormented....
For, not fearing Zeus,
In thy private mind thou dost regard
Mortals too much, Prometheus.
Come, though a thankless
Favor, friend, say where is any strength,
From ephemerals any help? Saw you not
The powerless inefficiency,
Dream-like, in which the blind ...
Race of mortals are entangled?
Never counsels of mortals
May transgress the harmony of Zeus.
I learned these things looking on
Thy destructive fate, Prometheus.
For different to me did this strain come,
And that which round thy baths
And couch I hymned,
With the design of marriage, when my father's child
With bridal gifts persuading, thou didst lead
Hesione the partner of thy bed.
_Io._ What earth, what race, what being shall I is this
I see in bridles of rock
Exposed? By what crime's
Penalty dost thou perish? Show, to what part
Of earth I miserable have wandered.
Ah! ah! alas! alas!
Again some fly doth sting me wretched,
Image of earth-born Argus, cover it, earth;
I fear the myriad-eyed herdsman beholding;
For he goes having a treacherous eye,
Whom not e'en dead the earth conceals.
But me, wretched from the Infernals passing,
He pursues, and drives fasting along the seaside
Sand, while low resounds a wax-compacted reed,
Uttering sleep-giving law; alas! alas! O gods!
Where, gods! where lead me far-wandering courses?
In what sin, O son of Kronos,
In what sin ever having taken,
To these afflictions hast thou yoked me? alas! alas!
With fly-driven fear a wretched
Frenzied one dost thus afflict?
With fire burn, or with earth cover, or
To sea monsters give for food, nor
Envy me my prayers, king.
Enough much-wandered wanderings
Have exercised me, nor can I learn where
I shall escape from sufferings.
_Ch._ Hear'st thou the address of the cow-horned virgin?
_Pr._ And how not hear the fly-whirled virgin,
Daughter of Inachus, who Zeus' heart warmed
With love, and now the courses over long,
By Here hated, forcedly performs?
_Io._ Whence utterest thou my father's name?
Tell me, miserable, who thou art,
That to me, O suffering one, me born to suffer,
Thus true things dost address?
The god-sent ail thou'st named,
Which wastes me stinging
With maddening goads, alas! alas!
With foodless and unseemly leaps
Rushing headlong, I came,
By wrathful plots subdued.
Who of the wretched, who, alas! alas! suffers like me?
But to me clearly show
What me awaits to suffer,
What not necessary; what remedy of ill,
Teach, if indeed thou know'st; speak out,
Tell the ill-wandering virgin.
_Pr._ I'll clearly tell thee all you wish to learn.
Not weaving in enigmas, but in simple speech,
As it is just to open the mouth to friends.
Thou seest the giver of fire to men, Prometheus.
_Io._ O thou who didst appear a common help to mortals,
Wretched Prometheus, to atone for what do you endure this?
_Pr._ I have scarce ceased my sufferings lamenting.
_Io._ Would you not grant this favor to me?
_Pr._ Say what you ask; for you'd learn all from me.
_Io._ Say who has bound thee to the cliff.
_Pr._ The will, indeed, of Zeus, Hephaistus' hand.
_Io._ And penalty for what crimes dost thou pay?
_Pr._ Thus much only can I show thee.
_Io._ But beside this, declare what time will be
To me unfortunate the limit of my wandering.
_Pr._ Not to learn is better for thee than to learn these things.
_Io._ Conceal not from me what I am to suffer.
_Pr._ Indeed, I grudge thee not this favor.
_Io._ Why, then, dost thou delay to tell the whole?
_Pr._ There's no unwillingness, but I hesitate to vex thy mind.
_Io._ Care not for me more than is pleasant to me.
_Pr._ Since you are earnest, it behooves to speak; hear then.
_Ch._ Not yet, indeed; but a share of pleasure also give to me.
First we'll learn the malady of this one,
Herself relating her destructive fortunes,
And the remainder of her trials let her learn from thee.
_Pr._ 'T is thy part, Io, to do these a favor,
As well for every other reason, and as they are sisters of thy
father.
Since to weep and to lament misfortunes,
There where one will get a tear
From those attending, is worthy the delay.
_Io._ I know not that I need distrust you,
But in plain speech you shall learn
All that you ask for; and yet e'en telling I lament
The god-sent tempest, and dissolution
Of my form--whence to me miserable it came.
For always visions in the night, moving about
My virgin chambers, enticed me
With smooth words: "O greatly happy virgin,
Why be a virgin long? is permitted to obtain
The greatest marriage. For Zeus with love's dart
Has been warmed by thee, and wishes to unite
In love; but do thou, O child, spurn not the couch
Of Zeus, but go out to Lerna's deep
Morass, and stables of thy father's herds,
That the divine eye may cease from desire."
With such dreams every night
Was I unfortunate distressed, till I dared tell
My father of the night-wandering visions.
And he to Pytho and Dodona frequent
Prophets sent, that he might learn what it was necessary
He should say or do, to do agreeably to the gods.
And they came bringing ambiguous
Oracles, darkly and indistinctly uttered.
But finally a plain report came to Inachus,
Clearly enjoining him and telling
Out of my home and country to expel me,
Discharged to wander to the earth's last bounds;
And if he was not willing, from Zeus would come
A fiery thunderbolt, which would annihilate all his race.
Induced by such predictions of the Loxian,
Against his will he drove me out,
And shut me from the houses; but Zeus' rein
Compelled him by force to do these things.
Immediately my form and mind were
Changed, and horned, as you behold, stung
By a sharp-mouthed fly, with frantic leaping
Rushed I to Cenchrea's palatable stream,
And Lerna's source; but a herdsman born-of-earth
Of violent temper, Argus, accompanied, with numerous
Eyes my steps observing.
But unexpectedly a sudden fate
Robbed him of life; and I, fly-stung,
By lash divine am driven from land to land.
You hear what has been done; and if you have to say aught,
What's left of labors, speak; nor pitying me
Comfort with false words; for an ill
The worst of all, I say, are made-up words.
Ne'er, ne'er did I presume such cruel words
Would reach my ears, nor thus unsightly
And intolerable hurts, sufferings, fears with a two-edged
Goad would chill my soul;
Alas! alas! fate! fate!
I shudder, seeing the state of Io.
_Pr._ Beforehand sigh'st thou, and art full of fears,
Hold till the rest also thou learn'st.
_Ch._ Tell, teach; for to the sick 't is sweet
To know the remaining pain beforehand clearly.
_Pr._ Your former wish ye got from me
With ease; for first ye asked to learn from her
Relating her own trials;
The rest now hear, what sufferings 't is necessary
This young woman should endure from Here.
But do thou, offspring of Inachus, my words
Cast in thy mind, that thou may'st learn the boundaries of
the way.
First, indeed, hence towards the rising of the sun
Turning thyself, travel uncultivated lands,
And to the Scythian nomads thou wilt come, who woven roofs
On high inhabit, on well-wheeled carts,
With far-casting bows equipped;
Whom go not near, but to the sea-resounding cliffs
Bending thy feet, pass from the region.
On the left hand the iron-working
Chalybes inhabit, whom thou must needs beware,
For they are rude and inaccessible to strangers.
And thou wilt come to the Hybristes river, not ill named,
Which pass not, for not easy is 't to pass,
Before you get to Caucasus itself, highest
Of mountains, where the stream spurts out its tide
From the very temples; and passing over
The star-neighbored summits, 't is necessary to go
The southern way, where thou wilt come to the man-hating
Will inhabit, by the Thermedon, where's
Salmydessia, rough jaw of the sea,
Inhospitable to sailors, stepmother of ships;
They will conduct thee on thy way, and very cheerfully.
And to the Cimmerian isthmus thou wilt come,
Just on the narrow portals of a lake, which leaving
It behooves thee with stout heart to pass the Moeotic straits;
And there will be to mortals ever a great fame
Of thy passage, and Bosphorus from thy name
'T will be called. And leaving Europe's plain
The continent of Asia thou wilt reach.--Seemeth to thee,
forsooth,
The tyrant of the gods in everything to be
Thus violent? For he a god, with this mortal
Wishing to unite, drove her to these wanderings.
A bitter wooer didst thou find, O virgin,
For thy marriage. For the words you now have heard
Think not yet to be the prelude.
_Pr._ Again dost shriek and heave a sigh? What
Wilt thou do when the remaining ills thou learn'st?
_Ch._ And hast thou any further suffering to tell her?
_Pr._ Ay, a tempestuous sea of baleful woe.
_Io._ What profit, then, for me to live, and not in haste
To cast myself from this rough rock,
That rushing down upon the plain I may be released
From every trouble? For better once for all to die,
Than all my days to suffer evilly.
_Pr._ Unhappily my trials would'st thou hear,
To whom to die has not been fated;
For this would be release from sufferings;
But now there is no end of ills lying
Before me, until Zeus falls from sovereignty.
_Io._ And is Zeus ever to fall from power?
_Pr._ Thou would'st be pleased, I think, to see this accident.
_Io._ How should I not, who suffer ill from Zeus?
_Pr._ That these things then are so, be thou assured.
_Io._ By what one will the tyrant's power be robbed?
_Pr._ Himself, by his own senseless counsels.
_Io._ In what way show, if there's no harm.
_Pr._ He will make such a marriage as one day he'll repent.
_Io._ Of god or mortal? If to be spoken, tell.
_Pr._ What matters which? For these things are not to be told.
_Io._ By a wife will he be driven from the throne?
_Pr._ Ay, she will bring forth a son superior to his father.
_Io._ Is there no refuge for him from this fate?
_Pr._ None, surely, till I may be released from bonds.
_Io._ Who, then, is to release thee, Zeus unwilling?
_Pr._ He must be some one of thy descendants.
_Io._ How sayest thou? that my child will deliver thee from ills?
_Pr._ Third of thy race after ten other births.
_Io._ This oracle is not yet easy to be guessed.
_Pr._ But do not seek to understand thy sufferings.
_Io._ First proffering gain to me, do not then withhold it.
_Pr._ I'll grant thee one of two relations.
_Io._ What two propose, and give to me my choice.
_Pr._ I give; choose whether thy remaining troubles
I shall tell thee clearly, or him that will release me.
_Ch._ Consent to do her the one favor,
Me the other, nor deem us undeserving of thy words;
To her indeed tell what remains of wandering,
And to me, who will release; for I desire this.
_Pr._ Since ye are earnest, I will not resist
To tell the whole, as much as ye ask for.
To thee first, Io, vexatious wandering I will tell,
Which engrave on the remembering tablets of the mind.
When thou hast passed the flood boundary of continents,
Towards the flaming orient sun-traveled ...
Passing through the tumult of the sea, until you reach
The Gorgonian plains of Cisthene, where
The Phorcides dwell, old virgins,
Three, swan-shaped, having a common eye,
One-toothed, whom neither the sun looks on
With his beams, nor nightly moon ever.
And near, their winged sisters three,
Dragon-scaled Gorgons, odious to men,
Whom no mortal beholding will have breath;
Such danger do I tell thee.
But hear another odious sight;
Beware the gryphons, sharp-mouthed
Dogs of Zeus, which bark not, and the one-eyed Arimaspian
Host, going on horseback, who dwell about
The golden-flowing flood of Pluto's channel;
These go not near. But to a distant land
Thou 'lt come, a dusky race, who near the fountains
Of the sun inhabit, where is the Aethiopian river.
Creep down the banks of this, until thou com'st
To a descent, where from Byblinian mounts
The Nile sends down its sacred palatable stream.
This will conduct thee to the triangled land
Nilean, where, Io, 't is decreed
Thou and thy progeny shall form the distant colony.
If aught of this is unintelligible to thee, and hard to be
found out,
Repeat thy questions, and learn clearly;
For more leisure than I want is granted me.
_Ch._ If to her aught remaining or omitted
Thou hast to tell of her pernicious wandering,
Speak; but if thou hast said all, give us
The favor which we ask, for surely thou remember'st.
_Pr._ The whole term of her traveling has she heard.
But that she may know that not in vain she hears me,
I'll tell what before coming hither she endured,
Giving this as proof of my relations.
The great multitude of words I will omit,
And proceed unto the very limit of thy wanderings.
When, then, you came to the Molossian ground,
And near the high-ridged Dodona, where
Oracle and seat is of Thesprotian Zeus,
And prodigy incredible, the speaking oaks,
By whom you clearly, and naught enigmatically,
Were called the illustrious wife of Zeus
About to be, if aught of these things soothes thee;
Thence, driven by the fly, you came
The seaside way to the great gulf of Rhea,
From which by courses retrograde you are now tempest-tossed.
But for time to come the sea gulf,
Clearly know, will be called Ionian,
Memorial of thy passage to all mortals.
Proofs to thee are these of my intelligence,
That it sees somewhat more than the apparent.
But the rest to you and her in common I will tell,
Having come upon the very track of former words.
There is a city Canopus, last of the land,
By Nile's very mouth and bank;
There at length Zeus makes thee sane,
Stroking with gentle hand, and touching only.
And, named from Zeus' begetting,
Thou wilt bear dark Epaphus, who will reap
As much land as broad-flowing Nile doth water;
And fifth from him, a band of fifty children
Again to Argos shall unwilling come,
Of female sex, avoiding kindred marriage
Of their cousins; but they, with minds inflamed,
Hawks by doves not far left behind,
Will come pursuing marriages
Subdued with woman's hand with night-watching boldness.
For each wife shall take her husband's life,
Staining a two-edged dagger in his throat.
Such 'gainst my foes may Cypris come.--
But one of the daughters shall love soften
Not to slay her bedfellow, but she will waver
In her mind; and one of two things will prefer,
To hear herself called timid, rather than stained with blood;
She shall in Argos bear a royal race.--
Of a long speech is need this clearly to discuss.
From this seed, however, shall be born a brave,
Famed for his bow, who will release me
From these sufferings. Such oracle my ancient
Mother told me, Titanian Themis;
But how and by what means, this needs long speech
To tell, and nothing, learning, wilt thou gain.
_Io._ Ah me! ah wretched me!
Spasms again and brain-struck
Madness burn me within, and a fly's dart
Stings me,--not wrought by fire.
My heart with fear knocks at my breast,
And my eyes whirl round and round,
And from my course I'm borne by madness'
Furious breath, unable to control my tongue;
While confused words dash idly
'Gainst the waves of horrid woe.
_Ch._ Wise, wise indeed was he,
Who first in mind
This weighed, and with the tongue expressed,
To marry according to one's degree is best by far;
Nor, being a laborer with the hands,
To woo those who are by wealth corrupted,
Nor, those by birth made great.
Never, never me
May you behold the sharer of Zeus' couch.
Nor may I be brought near to any husband among those from heaven,
Not content with man, through marriage vexed
With these distressful wanderings by Here.
But for myself, since an equal marriage is without fear,
I am not concerned lest the love of the almighty
Gods cast its inevitable eye on me.
Without war, indeed, this war, producing
Troubles; nor do I know what would become of me;
For I see not how I should escape the subtlety of Zeus.
_Pr._ Surely shall Zeus, though haughty now,
Yet be humble, such marriage
He prepares to make, which from sovereignty
And the throne will cast him down obscure; and Father Kronos'
Curse will then be all fulfilled,
Which falling from the ancient seats he imprecated.
And refuge from such ills none of the gods
But I can show him clearly.
I know these things, and in what manner. Now, therefore,
Being bold, let him sit trusting to lofty
To fall disgracefully intolerable falls;
Such wrestler does he now prepare,
Himself against himself, a prodigy most hard to be withstood;
Who, indeed, will invent a better flame than lightning,
And a loud sound surpassing thunder;
And shiver the trident, Neptune's weapon,
The marine earth-shaking ail.
Stumbling upon this ill he'll learn
How different to govern and to serve.
_Ch._ Ay, as you hope you vent this against Zeus.
_Pr._ What will be done, and also what I hope, I say.
_Ch._ And are we to expect that any will rule Zeus?
_Pr._ Even than these more grievous ills he'll have.
_Ch._ How fear'st thou not, hurling such words?
_Pr._ What should I fear, to whom to die has not been fated?
_Ch._ But suffering more grievous still than this he may inflict.
_Pr._ Then let him do it; all is expected by me.
_Ch._ Those reverencing Adrastia are wise.
_Pr._ Revere, pray, flatter each successive ruler.
Me less than nothing Zeus concerns.
Let him do, let him prevail this short time
As he will, for long he will not rule the gods,--
But I see here, indeed, Zeus' runner,
The new tryant's drudge;
Doubtless he brings some new message.
_Her._ To thee, the sophist, the bitterly bitter,
The sinner against gods, the giver of honors
To ephemerals, the thief of fire, I speak;
The Father commands thee to tell the marriage
Which you boast, by which he falls from power;
And that, too, not enigmatically,
But each particular declare; nor cause me
Double journeys, Prometheus; for thou see'st that
Zeus is not appeased by such.
_Pr._ Solemn-mouthed and full of wisdom
Is thy speech, as of the servant of the gods.
Ye newly rule, and think forsooth
To dwell in griefless citadels; have I not seen
Two tyrants fallen from these?
And third I shall behold him ruling now,
Basest and speediest. Do I seem to thee
To fear and shrink from the new gods?
Nay, much and wholly I fall short of this.
The way thou cam'st go through the dust again;
For thou wilt learn naught which thou ask'st of me.
_Her._ Ay, by such insolence before
You brought yourself into these woes.
_Pr._ Plainly know, I would not change
My ill fortune for thy servitude,
For better, I think, to serve this rock
Than be the faithful messenger of Father Zeus.
Thus to insult the insulting it is fit.
_Her._ Thou seem'st to enjoy thy present state.
_Pr._ I enjoy? Enjoying thus my enemies
Would I see; and thee 'mong them I count.
_Her._ Dost thou blame me for aught of thy misfortunes?
_Pr._ In plain words, all gods I hate,
As many as well treated wrong me unjustly.
_Her._ I hear thee raving, no slight ail.
_Pr._ Ay, I should ail, if ail one's foes to hate.
_Her._ If prosperous, thou couldst not be borne.
_Her._ This word Zeus does not know.
_Pr._ But time growing old teaches all things.
_Her._ And still thou know'st not yet how to be prudent.
_Pr._ For I should not converse with thee a servant.
_Her._ Thou seem'st to say naught which the Father wishes.
_Pr._ And yet his debtor I'd requite the favor.
_Her._ Thou mock'st me verily as if I were a child.
_Pr._ And art thou not a child, and simpler still than this,
If thou expectest to learn aught from me?
There is not outrage nor expedient, by which
Zeus will induce me to declare these things,
Before he loose these grievous bonds.
Let there be hurled, then, flaming fire,
And the white-winged snows, and thunders
Of the earth, let him confound and mingle all.
For none of these will bend me till I tell
By whom 't is necessary he should fall from sovereignty.
_Her._ Consider now if these things seem helpful.
_Pr._ Long since these were considered and resolved.
_Her._ Venture, O vain one, venture, at length,
In view of present sufferings to be wise.
_Pr._ In vain you vex me, as a wave, exhorting.
Ne'er let it come into thy mind that I, fearing
Zeus' anger, shall become woman-minded,
And beg him, greatly hated,
With womanish upturnings of the hands,
To loose me from these bonds. I am far from it.
_Her._ Though saying much I seem in vain to speak;
For thou art nothing softened nor appeased
By prayers; but champing at the bit like a new-yoked
Colt, thou strugglest and contend'st against the reins.
But thou art violent with feeble wisdom.
For stubbornness to him who is not wise,
Itself alone, is less than nothing strong.
But consider, if thou art not persuaded by my words,
What storm and triple surge of ills
Will come upon thee, not to be avoided; for first this rugged
Cliff with thunder and lightning flame
The Father'll rend, and hide
Thy body, and a strong arm will bury thee.
When thou hast spent a long length of time,
Thou wilt come back to light; and Zeus'
Winged dog, a bloodthirsty eagle, ravenously
Shall tear the great rag of thy body,
Creeping an uninvited guest all day,
And banquet on thy liver black by eating.
Of such suffering expect not any end,
Before some god appear
Succeeding to thy labors, and wish to go to rayless
Hades, and the dark depths of Tartarus.
Therefore deliberate; since this is not made
Boasting, but in earnest spoken;
For to speak falsely does not know the mouth
Of Zeus, but every word he does. So
Look about thee, and consider, nor ever think
Obstinacy better than prudence.
_Ch._ To us indeed Hermes appears to say not unseasonable things,
Self-will, to seek prudent counsel.
Obey; for it is base to err, for a wise man.
_Pr._ To me foreknowing these messages
He has uttered, but for a foe to suffer ill
From foes is naught unseemly.
Therefore 'gainst me let there be hurled
Fire's double-pointed curl, and air
Be provoked with thunder, and a tumult
Of wild winds; and earth from its foundations
Let a wind rock, and its very roots,
And with a rough surge mingle
The sea waves with the passages
Of the heavenly stars, and to black
Tartarus let him quite cast down my
Body, by necessity's strong eddies.
Yet after all he will not kill me.
_Her._ Such words and counsels you may hear
From the brain-struck.
For what lacks he of being mad?
And if prosperous, what does he cease from madness?
Do you, therefore, who sympathize
With this one's suffering,
From these places quick withdraw somewhere,
Lest the harsh bellowing thunder
Stupefy your minds.
_Ch._ Say something else, and exhort me
To some purpose; for surely
Thou hast intolerably abused this word.
How direct me to perform a baseness?
I wish to suffer with him whate'er is necessary,
For I have learned to hate betrayers;
Nor is the pest
Which I abominate more than this.
_Her._ Remember, then, what I foretell;
Nor by calamity pursued
Blame fortune, nor e'er say
That Zeus into unforeseen
Ill has cast you; surely not, but yourselves
You yourselves; for knowing,
And not suddenly nor clandestinely,
You'll be entangled through your folly
In an impassable net of woe.
_Pr._ Surely indeed, and no more in word,
Earth is shaken;
And a hoarse sound of thunder
Bellows near; and wreaths of lightning
Flash out fiercely blazing, and whirlwinds dust
Whirl up; and leap the blasts
Of all winds, 'gainst one another
Blowing in opposite array;
And air with sea is mingled;
Such impulse against me from Zeus,
Producing fear, doth plainly come.
O revered Mother, O Ether
Revolving common light to all,
You see me, how unjust things I endure!
Equally by night always,
And by day, having the sun, the good
Lead a life without labor, not disturbing the earth
With violent hands, nor the sea water,
For a scanty living; but honored
By the gods, who take pleasure in fidelity to oaths,
They spend a tearless existence;
While the others suffer unsightly pain.
But as many as endured threefold
Probation, keeping the mind from all
Injustice, going the way of Zeus to Kronos' tower,
Where the ocean breezes blow around
The island of the blessed; and flowers of gold shine,
Some on the land from dazzling trees,
And the water nourishes others;
With garlands of these they crown their hands and hair,
According to the just decrees of Rhadamanthus,
Whom Father Kronos, the husband of Rhea,
Having the highest throne of all, has ready by himself as his
assistant judge.
Peleus and Kadmus are regarded among these;
And his mother brought Achilles, when she had
Persuaded the heart of Zeus with prayers,
Who overthrew Hector, Troy's
Unconquered, unshaken column, and gave Cycnus
To death, and Morning's Aethiop son.
Always around virtues labor and expense strive toward a work
Covered with danger; but those succeeding seem to be wise even
to the citizens.
Dangerless virtues,
Neither among men, nor in hollow ships,
Are honorable; but many remember if a fair deed is done.
Ancient sayings of men relate,
That when Zeus and the Immortals divided earth,
Rhodes was not yet apparent in the deep sea;
But in salt depths the island was hid.
And, Helios being absent, no one claimed for him his lot;
So they left him without any region for his share,
The pure god. And Zeus was about to make a second drawing of lots
For he said that within the white sea he had seen a certain land
springing up from the bottom,
Capable of feeding many men, and suitable for flocks.
And straightway he commanded golden-filleted Lachesis
To stretch forth her hands, and not contradict
The great oath of the gods, but with the son of Kronos
Assent that, to the bright air being sent by his nod,
It should hereafter be his prize. And his words were fully
performed,
Meeting with truth. The island sprang from the watery
Sea; and the genial Father of penetrating beams,
Ruler of fire-breathing horses, has it.
A man doing fit things
He named the Hill of Kronos, for before nameless,
While Oenomaus ruled, it was moistened with much snow;
And at this first rite the Fates stood by,
And Time, who alone proves
Unchanging truth.
With the javelin Phrastor struck the mark;
And Eniceus cast the stone afar,
Whirling his hand, above them all,
And with applause it rushed
Through a great tumult;
And the lovely evening light
Of the fair-faced moon shone on the scene.
When, having done fair things, O Agesidamus,
Without the reward of song, a man may come
To Hades' rest, vainly aspiring
He obtains with toil some short delight.
But the sweet-voiced lyre
And the sweet flute bestow some favor;
For Zeus' Pierian daughters
Have wide fame.
O ye, who inhabit for your lot the seat of the Cephisian
Streams, yielding fair steeds, renowned Graces,
Ruling bright Orchomenos,
Protectors of the ancient race of Minyae,
Hear, when I pray.
For with you are all pleasant
And sweet things to mortals;
If wise, if fair, if noble,
Any man. For neither do the gods,
Without the august Graces,
Rule the dance,
Nor feasts; but stewards
Of all works in heaven,
Having placed their seats
By golden-bowed Pythian Apollo,
They reverence the eternal power
August Aglaia and song-loving
Euphrosyne, children of the mightiest god,
Hear now, and Thalia loving song,
Beholding this band, in favorable fortune
Lightly dancing; for in Lydian
Manner meditating,
I come celebrating Asopichus,
Since Minya by thy means is victor at the Olympic games.
Now to Persephone's
Black-walled house go, Echo,
Bearing to his father the famous news;
That seeing Cleodamus thou mayest say,
That in renowned Pisa's vale
His son crowned his young hair
With plumes of illustrious contests.
Thou extinguishest even the spear-like bolt
Of everlasting fire. And the eagle sleeps on the sceptre of Zeus,
The king of birds.
Whatever things Zeus has not loved
Are terrified, hearing
The voice of the Pierians,
On earth and the immeasurable sea.
A plain-spoken man brings advantage to every government,--
To a monarchy, and when the
Impetuous crowd, and when the wise, rule a city.
As many, therefore, as came suffering
From spontaneous ulcers, or wounded
In their limbs with glittering steel,
Or with the far-cast stone,
Or by the summer's heat o'ercome in body,
Or by winter, relieving he saved from
Various ills; some cherishing
With soothing strains,
Others having drunk refreshing draughts, or applying
Remedies to the limbs, others by cutting off he made erect.
But even wisdom is bound by gain,
And gold appearing in the hand persuaded even him, with its
bright reward,
To bring a man from death
Already overtaken. But the Kronian, smiting
With both hands, quickly took away
The breath from his breasts;
And the rushing thunderbolt hurled him to death.
It is necessary for mortal minds
To seek what is reasonable from the divinities,
Knowing what is before the feet, of what destiny we are.
Do not, my soul, aspire to the life
Of the Immortals, but exhaust the practicable means.
The Immortals distribute to men
With one good two
Evils. The foolish, therefore,
Are not able to bear these with grace,
But the wise, turning the fair outside.
But thee the lot of good fortune follows,
or surely great Destiny
Looks down upon a king ruling the people,
If on any man. But a secure life
Nor to godlike Cadmus,
Who yet are said to have had
The greatest happiness
Of mortals, and who heard
The song of the golden-filleted Muses,
On the mountain, and in seven-gated Thebes,
When the one married fair-eyed Harmonia,
And the other Thetis, the illustrious daughter of wise-counseling
And the gods feasted with both;
And they saw the royal children of Kronos
On golden seats, and received
Marriage gifts; and having exchanged
Former toils for the favor of Zeus,
They made erect the heart.
But in course of time
His three daughters robbed the one
Of some of his serenity by acute
Sufferings; when Father Zeus, forsooth, came
To the lovely couch of white-armed Thyone.
And the other's child, whom only the immortal
Thetis bore in Phthia, losing
His life in war by arrows,
Being consumed by fire excited
The lamentation of the Danaans.
But if any mortal has in his
Mind the way of truth,
It is necessary to make the best
Of what befalls from the blessed.
For various are the blasts
Of high-flying winds.
The happiness of men stays not a long time,
Though fast it follows rushing on.
Humble in humble estate, lofty in lofty,
I will be; and the attending daemon
I will always reverence in my mind,
Serving according to my means.
But if Heaven extend to me kind wealth,
I have hope to find lofty fame hereafter.
They are the fame of men--
From resounding words which skillful artists
Sung, we know.
For virtue through renowned
Song is lasting.
But for few is it easy to obtain.
He bestowed the lyre,
And he gives the muse to whom he wishes,
Bringing peaceful serenity to the breast.
The phantom of a shadow are men.
He reared the white-armed child Cyrene,
Who loved neither the alternating motion of the loom,
Nor the superintendence of feasts,
With the pleasures of companions;
But, with javelins of steel
And the sword contending,
To slay wild beasts;
Affording surely much
And tranquil peace to her father's herds;
Spending little sleep
Upon her eyelids,
As her sweet bedfellow, creeping on at dawn.
Fortunate and celebrated
By the wise is that man
Who, conquering by his hands or virtue
Of his feet, takes the highest prizes
Through daring and strength,
And living still sees his youthful son
Deservedly obtaining Pythian crowns.
The brazen heaven is not yet accessible to him.
But whatever glory we
Of mortal race may reach,
He goes beyond, even to the boundaries
Of navigation. But neither in ships, nor going on foot,
Couldst thou find the wonderful way to the contests of the
If, being beautiful,
And doing things like to his form,
The child of Aristophanes
Went to the height of manliness, no further
Is it easy to go over the untraveled sea,
One with native virtues
Greatly prevails; but he who
Possesses acquired talents, an obscure man,
Aspiring to various things, never with fearless
Foot advances, but tries
A myriad virtues with inefficient mind.
Yellow-haired Achilles, meanwhile, remaining in the house of
Being a boy played
Great deeds; often brandishing
Iron-pointed javelins in his hands,
Swift as the winds, in fight he wrought death to savage lions;
And he slew boars, and brought their bodies
As soon as six years old. And all the while
Artemis and bold Athene admired him,
Slaying stags without dogs or treacherous nets;
For he conquered them on foot.
Whatever virtues sovereign destiny has given me,
I well know that time, creeping on,
Will fulfill what was fated.
No image-maker am I, who being still make statues
Standing on the same base. But on every
Merchant-ship and in every boat, sweet song,
Go from Aegina to announce that Lampo's son,
Has conquered the pancratian crown at the Nemean games.
One the race of men and of gods;
And from one mother
We all breathe.
But quite different power
Divides us, so that the one is nothing,
But the brazen heaven remains always
A secure abode. Yet in some respect we are related,
Either in mighty mind or form, to the Immortals;
Although not knowing
To what resting-place,
By day or night, Fate has written that we shall run.
In secret votes the Danaans aided Ulysses;
And Ajax, deprived of golden arms, struggled with death.
Surely, wounds of another kind they wrought
In the warm flesh of their foes, waging war
With the man-defending spear.
Virtue increases, being sustained by wise men and just,
As when a tree shoots up with gentle dews into the liquid air.
There are various uses of friendly men;
But chiefest in labors; and even pleasure
Requires to place some pledge before the eyes.
Once they led to seven-gated Thebes an army of men, not according
Brandishing his lightning, impel to march
But to apparent destruction
The host made haste to go, with brazen arms
And horse equipments, and on the banks
Of Ismenus, defending sweet return,
Their white-flowered bodies fattened fire.
For seven pyres devoured young-limbed
Zeus rent the deep-bosomed earth
With his mighty thunderbolt,
And buried him with his horses,
Ere, being struck in the back
By the spear of Periclymenus, his warlike
Spirit was disgraced.
For in daemonic fears
Flee even the sons of gods.
Nevertheless, I give thee
Thy choice of these: if, indeed, fleeing
Death and odious age,
You wish to dwell on Olympus,
With Athene and black-speared Mars,
Thou hast this lot;
But if thou thinkest to fight
For thy brother, and share
All things with him,
Half the time thou mayest breathe, being beneath the earth,
And half in the golden halls of heaven.
The god thus having spoken, he did not
Entertain a double wish in his mind.
And he released first the eye, and then the voice,
Of brazen-mitred Castor.
One reward of labors is sweet to one man, one to another,--
To the shepherd, and the plower, and the bird-catcher,
And whom the sea nourishes.
But every one is tasked to ward off
Grievous famine from the stomach.
Fond of gain, nor a laboring woman;
Nor were the sweet-sounding,
Soothing strains
Of Terpsichore sold,
With silvered front.
But now she directs to observe the saying
Of the Argive, coming very near the truth,
Who cried, "Money, money, man,"
Being bereft of property and friends.
"If ever, O Father Zeus, thou hast heard
My supplication with willing mind,
Now I beseech thee, with prophetic
Prayer, grant a bold son from Eriboea
To this man, my fated guest;
Rugged in body
As the hide of this wild beast
Which now surrounds me, which, first of all
My contests, I slew once in Nemea; and let his mind agree."
To him thus having spoken, Heaven sent
A great eagle, king of birds,
And sweet joy thrilled him inwardly.
The children of the Athenians laid the shining
Foundation of freedom,
And in Plataea, making it firm
As adamant.
Having risen he went
Over land and sea,
And stood over the vast summits of mountains,
And threaded the recesses, penetrating to the foundations of
the groves.
Heaven being willing, even on an osier thou mayest sail.
"Were it the will of heaven, an osier bough
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."]
Honors and crowns of the tempest-footed
Horses delight one;
Others live in golden chambers;
And some even are pleased traversing securely
The swelling of the sea in a swift ship.
This I will say to thee:
The lot of fair and pleasant things
It behooves to show in public to all the people;
But if any adverse calamity sent from heaven befall
Men, this it becomes to bury in darkness.
Pindar said that "hopes were the dreams of those awake."
To Heaven it is possible from black
Night to make arise unspotted light,
And with cloud-blackening darkness to obscure
The pure splendor of day.
First, indeed, the Fates brought the wise-counseling
Uranian Themis, with golden horses,
By the fountains of Ocean to the awful ascent
Of Olympus, along the shining way,
To be the first spouse of Zeus the Deliverer.
And she bore the golden-filleted, fair-wristed
Hours, preservers of good things.
Equally tremble before God
And a man dear to God.
 [This and the following are fragments of Pindar found in ancient
O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy quire,--
To be a meteor in the sky,
Or comet that may range on high;
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.
In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do,--
Only--be it near to you!
For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care:
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city's year forlorn.
Whate'er we leave to God, God does,
And blesses us;
The work we choose should be our own,
God leaves alone.
If with light head erect I sing,
Though all the Muses lend their force,
From my poor love of anything,
The verse is weak and shallow as its source.
But if with bended neck I grope,
Listening behind me for my wit,
With faith superior to hope,
More anxious to keep back than forward it,
Making my soul accomplice there
Unto the flame my heart hath lit,
Then will the verse forever wear,--
Time cannot bend the line which God hath writ.
Always the general show of things
Floats in review before my mind,
And such true love and reverence brings,
That sometimes I forget that I am blind.
But now there comes unsought, unseen,
Some clear divine electuary,
And I, who had but sensual been,
Grow sensible, and as God is, am wary.
I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before;
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earths and skies and seas around,
And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
A clear and ancient harmony
Pierces my soul through all its din,
As through its utmost melody,--
Farther behind than they, farther within.
More swift its bolt than lightning is.
Its voice than thunder is more loud,
It doth expand my privacies
To all, and leave me single in the crowd.
It speaks with such authority,
With so serene and lofty tone,
That idle Time runs gadding by,
And leaves me with Eternity alone.
Then chiefly is my natal hour,
And only then my prime of life;
Of manhood's strength it is the flower,
'T is peace's end, and war's beginning strife.
'T hath come in summer's broadest noon,
By a gray wall or some chance place,
Unseasoned time, insulted June,
And vexed the day with its presuming face.
Such fragrance round my couch it makes,
More rich than are Arabian drugs,
That my soul scents its life and wakes
The body up beneath its perfumed rugs.
Such is the Muse, the heavenly maid,
The star that guides our mortal course,
Which shows where life's true kernel's laid,
Its wheat's fine flour, and its undying force.
She with one breath attunes the spheres,
And also my poor human heart,
With one impulse propels the years
Around, and gives my throbbing pulse its start.
I will not doubt for evermore,
Nor falter from a steadfast faith,
For though the system be turned o'er,
God takes not back the word which once he saith.
I will, then, trust the love untold
Which not my worth nor want has bought,
Which wooed me young, and wooes me old,
And to this evening hath me brought.
My memory I'll educate
To know the one historic truth,
Remembering to the latest date
The only true and sole immortal youth.
Be but thy inspiration given,
No matter through what danger sought,
I'll fathom hell or climb to heaven,
And yet esteem that cheap which love has bought.
Fame cannot tempt the bard
Who's famous with his God,
Nor laurel him reward
Who hath his Maker's nod.
The god of day his car rolls up the slopes,
Reining his prancing steeds with steady hand;
The lingering moon through western shadows gropes,
While morning sheds its light o'er sea and land.
Castles and cities by the sounding main
Resound with all the busy din of life;
The fisherman unfurls his sails again;
And the recruited warrior bides the strife.
The early breeze ruffles the poplar leaves;
The curling waves reflect the unseen light;
The slumbering sea with the day's impulse heaves,
While o'er the western hill retires the drowsy night.
The seabirds dip their bills in Ocean's foam,
Far circling out over the frothy waves,--
Low in the eastern sky
Is set thy glancing eye;
And though its gracious light
Ne'er riseth to my sight,
Yet every star that climbs
Above the gnarled limbs
Of yonder hill,
Conveys thy gentle will.
Believe I knew thy thought,
And that the zephyrs brought
Thy kindest wishes through,
As mine they bear to you;
That some attentive cloud
Did pause amid the crowd
Over my head,
While gentle things were said.
Believe the thrushes sung,
And that the flower-bells rung,
That herbs exhaled their scent,
And beasts knew what was meant,
The trees a welcome waved,
And lakes their margins laved,
When thy free mind
To my retreat did wind.
It was a summer eve,
The air did gently heave
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud;
The lightning's silent gleam,
Startling my drowsy dream,
Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.
From yonder comes the sun,
But soon his course is run,
Rising to trivial day
Along his dusty way;
But thy noontide completes
Only auroral heats,
Nor ever sets,
To hasten vain regrets.
Direct thy pensive eye
Into the western sky;
And when the evening star
Does glimmer from afar
Upon the mountain line,
Accept it for a sign
That I am near,
And thinking of thee here.
I'll be thy Mercury,
Distinguished by thy face
The earth shall learn my place;
As near beneath thy light
Will I outwear the night,
With mingled ray
Leading the westward way.
Still will I strive to be
As if thou wert with me;
Whatever path I take,
It shall be for thy sake,
Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side,
Without a root
To trip thy gentle foot.
I'll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place,
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water-lilies float,
And cardinal-flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers.
Brother, where dost thou dwell?
What sun shines for thee now?
Dost thou indeed fare well,
As we wished thee here below?
What season didst thou find?
'Twas winter here.
Are not the Fates more kind
Than they appear?
Is thy brow clear again
As in thy youthful years?
And was that ugly pain
The summit of thy fears?
Yet thou wast cheery still;
They could not quench thy fire;
Thou didst abide their will,
And then retire.
Where chiefly shall I look
To feel thy presence near?
Along the neighboring brook
May I thy voice still hear?
Dost thou still haunt the brink
Of yonder river's tide?
And may I ever think
That thou art by my side?
What bird wilt thou employ
To bring me word of thee?
For it would give them joy--
'T would give them liberty--
To serve their former lord
With wing and minstrelsy.
A sadder strain mixed with their song,
They've slowlier built their nests;
Since thou art gone
Their lively labor rests.
Where is the finch, the thrush,
I used to hear?
Ah, they could well abide
The dying year.
Now they no more return,
I hear them not;
They have remained to mourn,
Or else forgot.
When life contracts into a vulgar span,
And human nature tires to be a man,
I thank the gods for Greece,
That permanent realm of peace.
For as the rising moon far in the night
Checkers the shade with her forerunning light,
So in my darkest hour my senses seem
To catch from her Acropolis a gleam.
Greece, who am I that should remember thee,
Is my life vulgar, my fate mean,
Which on such golden memories can lean?
One more is gone
Out of the busy throng
That tread these paths;
The church-bell tolls,
Its sad knell rolls
To many hearths.
Flower-bells toll not,
Their echoes roll not
Upon my ear;
There still, perchance,
That gentle spirit haunts
A fragrant bier.
Low lies the pall,
Lowly the mourners all
Their passage grope;
No sable hue
Mars the serene blue
Of heaven's cope.
In distant dell
Faint sounds the funeral bell;
A heavenly chime;
Some poet there
Weaves the light-burthened air
Into sweet rhyme.
Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed.
The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.
She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless;
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.
And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She's mistress of the night.
Thank God who seasons thus the year,
And sometimes kindly slants his rays;
For in his winter he's most near
And plainest seen upon the shortest days.
Who gently tempers now his heats.
And then his harsher cold, lest we
Should surfeit on the summer's sweets,
Or pine upon the winter's crudity.
A sober mind will walk alone,
Apart from nature, if need be,
And only its own seasons own:
For nature leaving its humanity.
Sometimes a late autumnal thought
Has crossed my mind in green July,
And to its early freshness brought
Late ripened fruits, and an autumnal sky.
The evening of the year draws on,
The fields a later aspect wear;
Since Summer's garishness is gone,
Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.
Behold! the shadows of the trees
Now circle wider 'bout their stem,
Like sentries that by slow degrees
Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.
And as the year doth decline,
The sun allows a scantier light;
Behind each needle of the pine
There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.
I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay
Around, beneath me, and on high;
It rocks the night, it soothes the day,
And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.
But most he chirps beneath the sod,
When he has made his winter bed;
His creak grown fainter but more broad,
A film of autumn o'er the summer spread.
Small birds, in fleets migrating by,
Now beat across some meadow's bay,
And as they tack and veer on high,
With faint and hurried click beguile the way.
Far in the woods, these golden days,
Some leaf obeys its Maker's call;
And through their hollow aisles it plays
With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.
Gently withdrawing from its stem,
It lightly lays itself along
Where the same hand hath pillowed them,
Resigned to sleep upon the old year's throng.
The loneliest birch is brown and sere,
The farthest pool is strewn with leaves,
Which float upon their watery bier,
Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.
The jay screams through the chestnut wood;
The crisped and yellow leaves around
Are hue and texture of my mood,
And these rough burs my heirlooms on the ground.
The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,
They are no wealthier than I;
But with as brave a core within
They rear their boughs to the October sky.
Poor knights they are which bravely wait
The charge of Winter's cavalry,
Keeping a simple Roman state,
Discumbered of their Persian luxury.
I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears,
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed.
Fain would I stretch me by the highway-side
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow;
That mingled, soul and body, with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.
The rabbit leaps,
The mouse out-creeps,
The flag out-peeps
Beside the brook;
The ferret weeps,
The marmot sleeps,
The owlet keeps
In his snug nook.
The apples thaw,
The ravens caw,
The squirrels gnaw
The frozen fruit.
To their retreat
I track the feet
Of mice that eat
The apple's root.
The snow-dust falls,
The otter crawls,
The partridge calls,
Far in the wood.
The traveler dreams,
The tree-ice gleams,
The blue jay screams
In angry mood.
The willows droop,
The alders stoop,
The pheasants group
Beneath the snow.
The catkins green
Cast o'er the scene
A summer's sheen,
A genial glow.
Poor bird! destined to lead thy life
Far in the adventurous west,
And here to be debarred to-night
From thy accustomed nest;
Must thou fall back upon old instinct now,
Well-nigh extinct under man's fickle care?
Did heaven bestow its quenchless inner light,
So long ago, for thy small want to-night?
Why stand'st upon thy toes to crow so late?
The moon is deaf to thy low feathered fate;
Or dost thou think so to possess the night,
And people the drear dark with thy brave sprite?
And now with anxious eye thou look'st about,
While the relentless shade draws on its veil,
For some sure shelter from approaching dews,
And the insidious steps of nightly foes.
I fear imprisonment has dulled thy wit,
Or ingrained servitude extinguished it.
But no; dim memory of the days of yore,
By Brahmapootra and the Jumna's shore,
Where thy proud race flew swiftly o'er the heath,
And sought its food the jungle's shade beneath,
Has taught thy wings to seek yon friendly trees,
As erst by Indus' banks and far Ganges.
If I am poor,
It is that I am proud;
If God has made me naked and a boor,
He did not think it fit his work to shroud.
The poor man comes direct from heaven to earth,
As stars drop down the sky, and tropic beams;
The rich receives in our gross air his birth,
As from low suns are slanted golden gleams.
Yon sun is naked, bare of satellite,
Unless our earth and moon that office hold;
Though his perpetual day feareth no night,
And his perennial summer dreads no cold.
Mankind may delve, but cannot my wealth spend;
If I no partial wealth appropriate,
No armed ships unto the Indies send,
None robs me of my Orient estate.
"Have you not seen,
In ancient times,
Pilgrims pass by
Toward other climes,
With shining faces,
Youthful and strong,
Mounting this hill
With speech and with song?"
"Ah, my good sir,
I know not those ways;
Little my knowledge,
Tho' many my days.
When I have slumbered,
I have heard sounds
As of travelers passing
These my grounds.
"'T was a sweet music
Wafted them by,
I could not tell
If afar off or nigh.
Unless I dreamed it,
This was of yore:
I never told it
To mortal before,
Never remembered
But in my dreams
What to me waking
A miracle seems."
In this roadstead I have ridden,
In this covert I have hidden;
Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me,
And I hid beneath their lee.
This true people took the stranger,
And warm-hearted housed the ranger;
They received their roving guest,
And have fed him with the best;
Whatsoe'er the land afforded
To the stranger's wish accorded;
Shook the olive, stripped the vine,
And expressed the strengthening wine.
And by night they did spread o'er him
What by day they spread before him;--
That good-will which was repast
Was his covering at last.
The stranger moored him to their pier
Without anxiety or fear;
By day he walked the sloping land,
By night the gentle heavens he scanned.
When first his bark stood inland
To the coast of that far Finland,
Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore
The weary mariner to restore.
And still he stayed from day to day
If he their kindness might repay;
But more and more
The sullen waves came rolling toward the shore.
And still the more the stranger waited,
The less his argosy was freighted,
And still the more he stayed,
The less his debt was paid.
So he unfurled his shrouded mast
To receive the fragrant blast;
And that sane refreshing gale
Which had wooed him to remain
Again and again,
It was that filled his sail
And drove him to the main.
All day the low-hung clouds
Dropt tears into the sea;
And the wind amid the shrouds
Sighed plaintively.
My life more civil is and free
Than any civil polity.
Ye princes, keep your realms
And circumscribed power,
Not wide as are my dreams,
Nor rich as is this hour.
What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness?
To all true wants Time's ear is deaf,
Penurious states lend no relief
Out of their pelf:
But a free soul--thank God--
Can help itself.
Be sure your fate
Doth keep apart its state,
Not linked with any band,
Even the noblest of the land;
In tented fields with cloth of gold
No place doth hold,
But is more chivalrous than they are,
And sigheth for a nobler war;
A finer strain its trumpet sings,
A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live
No man proposeth me;
No trade upon the street
Wears its emblazonry.
When the world grows old by the chimney-side
Then forth to the youngling nooks I glide,
Where over the water and over the land
The bells are booming on either hand.
Now up they go ding, then down again dong,
And awhile they ring to the same old song,
For the metal goes round at a single bound,
A-cutting the fields with its measured sound,
While the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom
As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.
Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone,
And seldom it is that one sound comes alone,
For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng,
And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.
When the echo hath reached me in this lone vale,
I am straightway a hero in coat of mail,
I tug at my belt and I march on my post,
And feel myself more than a match for a host.
Who equaleth the coward's haste,
And still inspires the faintest heart;
Whose lofty fame is not disgraced,
Though it assume the lowest part.
If thou wilt but stand by my ear,
When through the field thy anthem's rung,
When that is done I will not fear
But the same power will abet my tongue.
I've searched my faculties around,
To learn why life to me was lent:
I will attend the faintest sound,
And then declare to man what God hath meant.
No generous action can delay
Or thwart our higher, steadier aims;
But if sincere and true are they,
It will arouse our sight, and nerve our frames.
Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself;
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye;
And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe'er they think or hope it that may be,
They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me;
That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,
And my life practice more than my tongue saith;
That my low conduct may not show,
Nor my relenting lines,
That I thy purpose did not know,
Or overrated thy designs.
 [Five stanzas of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 46, 47.]
 [The last four lines appear in _Week_, p. 54.]
 ["The first four of these stanzas (unnamed by Thoreau) were
 ["These stanzas formed part of the original manuscript of the
essay on 'A Winter Walk,' but were excluded by Emerson." (Note in
 [In _The Dial_ this line reads, "Only the promise of my heart."]
 ["A copy of this hitherto unpublished poem has been kindly
furnished by Miss A. J. Ward." (Note in _Poems of Nature_.)]
"Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din"
"But since we sailed"
"Here then an aged shepherd dwelt"
"On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way"
"Who sleeps by day and walks by night"
"An early unconverted Saint"
"Low in the eastern sky" (TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST)
"Dong, sounds the brass in the East"
"Greece, who am I that should remember thee"
"Some tumultuous little rill"
"I make ye an offer"
"Conscience is instinct bred in the house" (CONSCIENCE)
"Such water do the gods distill"
"That Phaeton of our day"
"Then spend an age in whetting thy desire"
"Though all the fates should prove unkind"
"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS)
"The western wind came lumbering in"
"Then idle Time ran gadding by"
"Now chiefly is my natal hour"
"Away! away! away! away!"
"Ply the oars! away! away!" (RIVER SONG, part)
"Since that first 'Away! away!'" (RIVER SONG, part)
"Low-anchored cloud" (MIST)
"Man's little acts are grand"
"Our uninquiring corpses lie more low"
"The waves slowly beat"
"Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze" (HAZE)
"Where gleaming fields of haze"
"Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter" (BOAT SONG)
"This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome"
"True kindness is a pure divine affinity"
"Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy" (SYMPATHY)
"My love must be as free" (FREE LOVE)
"The Good how can we trust?"
"Nature doth have her dawn each day"
"Let such pure hate still underprop" (FRIENDSHIP)
"Men are by birth equal in this, that given"
"My life has been the poem I would have writ"
"I hearing get, who had but ears"
"Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend"
"Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er"
"I am the autumnal sun" (NATURE'S CHILD)
"A finer race and finer fed"
"I am a parcel of vain strivings tied" (SIC VITA)
"All things are current found"
"Men say they know many things"
"What's the railroad to me?"
"It is no dream of mine"
"Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird" (SMOKE)
"Die and be buried who will"
"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada" (from Anacreon)
"His steady sails he never furls"
RETURN OF SPRING (from Anacreon)
"Each summer sound"
"Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion"
"Upon the lofty elm tree sprays" (THE VIREO)
"Thou dusky spirit of the wood" (THE CROW)
"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears" (THE THAW, part)
"The river swelleth more and more" (A RIVER SCENE)
"The needles of the pine"
"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS)
"Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head"
"The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell" (SMOKE
"When Winter fringes every bough" (STANZAS WRITTEN AT
"In two years' time 't had thus"
Achilles, The Youth of, translation, 385.
Acre, an, as long measure, 60.
Aeschylus, The Prometheus Bound of, translation, 337-375.
Aesculapius, translation, 380.
Agriculture, the task of Americans, 229-231.
Ajax, The Treatment of, translation, 387.
American, money in Quebec, 24;
Amphiaraus, The Death of, translation, 387.
Apollo, translation, 383.
the fruit and flavor of the, 308-314;
with a better house than any in Canada, 100.
Ash trees, 6.
Aurora of Guido, The, verse, 399.
Bartram, William, quoted, 199.
Bathing feet in brooks, 140.
"Behold, how spring appearing," verse, 109.
Birch, yellow, 6.
Birds and mountains, 149.
Bittern, booming of the, 111.
Black Knight, The, verse, 415, note.
Blueberries, and milk, supper of, 144.
Books on natural history, reading, 103-105.
Bouchette, Topographical Description of the Canadas, quoted, 41,
Brand's Popular Antiquities quoted, 297, 298.
"Brother, where dost thou dwell?" verse, 403.
Butternut tree, 6.
Caen, Emery de, quoted, 52.
Canada, apparently older than the United States, 80, 81;
the French in, a nation of peasants, 82.
love of neighborhood, 42, 43;
vegetables and trees, 47, 48;
Cane, a straight and a twisted, 184, 185.
the view from, 88.
Castor and Pollux, translation, 388.
Chalmers, Dr., in criticism of Coleridge, 324.
Champlain, Samuel, quoted, 8;
whales in map of, 91.
Chateau Richer, church of, 46, 49;
Chaudiere River, the, 21;
Cherry-stones, transported by birds, 188.
Clothes, bad-weather, 28;
_Coureurs de bois_, and _de risques_, 43.
Crickets, the creaking of, 108.
Crookneck squash seeds, Quebec, 87.
not imported from Europe, 113.
Dogs in harness, 30.
Drake, Sir Francis, quoted, 325.
Dubartas, quoted, translation of Sylvester, 328, 329.
East Main, Labrador and, health in the words, 104.
Edda, the Prose, quoted, 291.
Eggs, a master in cooking, 61, 62.
Elysium, translation, 375.
Eyes, the sight of different men's 285-288.
Fall of the Leaf, The, verse, 407.
Falls, a drug of, 58.
Fishes, described in Massachusetts Report, 118.
Foreign country, quickly in a, 31.
Forests, nations preserved by, 229.
Fortifications, ancient and modern, 77, 78.
in the New World, English and, 66-68;
the, spoken in Quebec streets, 86, 87.
Friends, The Value of, translation, 387.
Froissart, good place to read, 23.
Funeral Bell, The, verse, 405.
Fur Countries, inspiring neighborhood of the, 105.
Geese, first flock of, 110.
Gesner, Konrad von, quoted, 318.
"Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf," verse, 418.
Greece, The Freedom of, translation, 390.
Grey, the traveler, quoted, 94.
Grippling for apples, 309.
Height of Glory, The, translation,384.
Hercules, names the Hill of Kronos, translation, 377.
Hercules' Prayer concerning Ajax, son of Telamon, translation,
"His steady sails he never furls," verse, 109.
_Hortus siccus_, nature in winter a, 179.
American compared with Canadian, 100.
Hunt House, the old, 201.
Hypseus' Daughter Cyrene, translation, 383.
"I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, 409.
"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, 120.
Ice, the booming of, 176.
Ice formations in a river-bank, 128, 129.
"If thou wilt but stand by my ear," verse, 418.
"If with light head erect I sing," verse, 396.
Imitations of Charette drivers, Yankee, 99.
"In this roadstead I have ridden," verse, 414.
"In two years' time 't had thus," verse, 303.
Independence, verse, 415.
Inn, inscription on wall of Swedish, 141.
Inspiration, quatrain, 418.
Invertebrate Animals, Report on, quoted, 129.
"I've searched my faculties around," verse, 418.
Jesuit Relations, quoted, 96.
Jesuits' Barracks, the, in Quebec, 24.
Joel, the prophet, quoted, 322.
Josselyn, John, quoted, 2.
on sea-plants near Quebec, 93.
heads like, 4.
Kent, the Duke of, property of, 38.
Knowledge, the slow growth of, 181;
Labrador and East Main, health in the words, 104.
Lalement, Hierosme, quoted, 22.
"Low in the eastern sky," verse, 400.
McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary, quoted, 49.
McTaggart, John, quoted, 94.
MacTavish, Simon, 98.
Man, The Divine in, translation, 386.
Map, drawing, on kitchen table, 60;
of Canada, inspecting a, 95.
Maple, the red and sugar, 6;
Maranon, the river, 93.
Merrimack River, the, 147.
Midnight, exploring the, 323.
Miller, a crabbed, 69.
Mississippi, discovery of the, 90;
extent of the, 93;
a panorama of the, 224.
Montcalm, Wolfe and, monument to, 73, 74.
the mixed population of, 17, 18;
and its surroundings, beautiful view of, 98;
Moonlight, reading by, 145.
Muse, The Venality of the, translation, 389.
"My life more civil is and free," verse, 415.
Names, poetry in, 20;
Natural history, reading books of, 103, 105.
Nature, health to be found in, 105;
man's work the most natural, compared with that of, 119;
the hand of, upon her children, 124, 125;
different methods of work, 125;
the civilized look of, 141;
the winter purity of, 167;
New things to be seen near home, 211, 212.
Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, quoted, 290.
Niepce, Joseph Nicephore, quoted, 238.
"No generous action can delay," verse, 418.
"Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head," verse, 144.
Old Marlborough Road, The, verse, 214.
Olympia at Evening, translation, 378.
Omnipresence, verse, 417.
"O Nature! I do not aspire," verse, 395.
Origin of Rhodes, translation, 376.
Orinoco, the river, 93.
Patent office, seeds sent by the, 203.
Peleus and Cadmus, translation, 381.
Penobscot Indians, use of muskrat-skins by, 116, 117.
Pindar, Translations from, 375.
Pine cone, stripped by squirrels, 196.
Plain and mountain, life of the, 151.
Pliny, the Elder, quoted, 292.
Point Levi, by ferry to, 70;
"Poor bird! destined to lead thy life," verse, 411.
Potherie, quoted, 52.
Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, The, translation, 337.
harbor and population of, 22;
fine view of, 49;
reentering, through St. John's Gate, 69;
lights in the lower town, 71;
landing again at, 72;
walk round the Upper Town, 72-76;
artillery barracks, 75;
mounted guns, 76;
origin of word, 88;
departure from, 95.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, quoted, 329.
Reports on the natural history of Massachusetts, 103, 114, 118,
Return of Spring, verse, 109.
Richelieu or St. John's River, 8.
Richelieu Rapids, the, 21.
River, the flow of a, 178.
Riviere du Sud, the, 92.
Riviere more meandering than River, 56.
lodgings in village of, 49-51;
interior of the church of _La Bonne_, 51, 52;
St. Charles River, the, 30.
St. Helen's Island (Montreal), 11.
cottages along the, 21;
banks of the, above Quebec, 40, 41;
Saunter, derivation of the word, 205, 206.
Scotchman dissatisfied with Canada, a, 75.
Scriptures, Hebrew, inadequacy of regarding winter, 183.
Sea-plants near Quebec, 93.
Seeds, the transportation of, by wind, 186, 187;
Sign language, 61.
Silliman, Benjamin, quoted, 98.
Smoke, winter morning, 165;
Snipe-shooting grounds, 48.
not recognized in Hebrew Scriptures, 183.
Society, health not to be found in, 105.
"Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion," verse, 112.
Squash, the large yellow, 203.
with nuts under snow, 195;
pine cones stripped by the, 196;
with filled cheek-pouches, 198.
Tamias, the steward squirrel, 198.
Tavern, the gods' interest in the, 153;
"Thank God, who seasons thus the year," verse, 407.
"The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray," verse, 406.
"The god of day his car rolls up the slopes," verse, 399.
"The needles of the pine," verse, 133.
"The river swelleth more and more," verse, 120.
"The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell," verse, 165.
Thoreau, Henry David, leaves Concord for Canada, 25th September,
leaves Quebec for Montreal on return trip, 95;
leaves Montreal for Boston, 99;
total expense of Canada excursion, 100, 101;
walk from Concord to Wachusett and back, 133-152;
observation of a red squirrel, 190, 191;
experience with government squash-seed, 203.
"Thou dusky spirit of the wood," verse, 113.
To a Stray Fowl, verse, 411.
To Aristoclides, Victor at the Nemean Games, translation, 384.
To My Brother, verse, 403.
To the Maiden in the East, verse, 400.
To the Lyre, translation, 379.
Traveling outfit, the best, 31-34.
the suggestions of, 125;
Tree-tops, things seen and found on, 245, 246.
Turtle, the snapping, 124.
"Upon the lofty elm tree sprays," verse, 112.
Vegetation, the type of all growth, 128.
Wachusett, a view of, 138;
birds or vegetation on summit of, 143;
Walls, Quebec and other, 74.
"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada," verse, 108.
general tendency towards the, 219-224.
Westmoreland, etymology of, 6.
"Whate'er we leave to God, God does," verse, 396.
"When life contracts into a vulgar span," verse, 404.
"When the world grows old by the chimney-side," verse, 417.
"When winter fringes every bough," verse, 176.
"Where they once dug for money," verse, 214.
"Who equaleth the coward's haste," verse, 417.
"Whoa," the crying of, to mankind, 235.
nature a _hortus siccus_ in, 179;
as represented in the almanac, 182;
ignored in Hebrew revelation, 183;
"With frontier strength ye stand your ground," verse, 133.
"Within the circuit of this plodding life," verse, 103.
Wolfe and Montcalm, monument to, 73.
Woodchopper, winter to be represented as a, 182.