Wherever the trees and
skies are reflected, there is more than Atlantic depth, and no
danger of fancy running aground.
We notice that it required a
separate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted vision,
to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to see the river
bottom merely; and so are there manifold visions in the direction
of every object, and even the most opaque reflect the heavens
from their surface. Some men have their eyes naturally intended
to the one and some to the other object.
"A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And the heavens espy."
Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts, floating buoyantly
amid the reflections of the trees, like a feather in mid-air, or
a leaf which is wafted gently from its twig to the water without
turning over, seemed still in their element, and to have very
delicately availed themselves of the natural laws. Their floating
there was a beautiful and successful experiment in natural
philosophy, and it served to ennoble in our eyes the art of
navigation; for as birds fly and fishes swim, so these men
sailed. It reminded us how much fairer and nobler all the actions
of man might be, and that our life in its whole economy might be
as beautiful as the fairest works of art or nature.
The sun lodged on the old gray cliffs, and glanced from every
pad; the bulrushes and flags seemed to rejoice in the delicious
light and air; the meadows were a-drinking at their leisure; the
frogs sat meditating, all sabbath thoughts, summing up their
week, with one eye out on the golden sun, and one toe upon a
reed, eying the wondrous universe in which they act their part;
the fishes swam more staid and soberly, as maidens go to church;
shoals of golden and silver minnows rose to the surface to behold
the heavens, and then sheered off into more sombre aisles; they
swept by as if moved by one mind, continually gliding past each
other, and yet preserving the form of their battalion unchanged,
as if they were still embraced by the transparent membrane which
held the spawn; a young band of brethren and sisters trying their
new fins; now they wheeled, now shot ahead, and when we drove
them to the shore and cut them off, they dexterously tacked and
passed underneath the boat. Over the old wooden bridges no
traveller crossed, and neither the river nor the fishes avoided
to glide between the abutments.
Here was a village not far off behind the woods, Billerica,
settled not long ago, and the children still bear the names of
the first settlers in this late "howling wilderness"; yet to all
intents and purposes it is as old as Fernay or as Mantua, an old
gray town where men grow old and sleep already under moss-grown
monuments, - outgrow their usefulness. This is ancient Billerica,
(Villarica?) now in its dotage, named from the English
Billericay, and whose Indian name was Shawshine. I never heard
that it was young. See, is not nature here gone to decay, farms
all run out, meeting-house grown gray and racked with age? If
you would know of its early youth, ask those old gray rocks in
the pasture. It has a bell that sounds sometimes as far as
Concord woods; I have heard that, - ay, hear it now. No wonder
that such a sound startled the dreaming Indian, and frightened
his game, when the first bells were swung on trees, and sounded
through the forest beyond the plantations of the white man. But
to-day I like best the echo amid these cliffs and woods. It is
no feeble imitation, but rather its original, or as if some rural
Orpheus played over the strain again to show how it should sound.
Dong, sounds the brass in the east,
As if to a funeral feast,
But I like that sound the best
Out of the fluttering west.
The steeple ringeth a knell,
But the fairies' silvery bell
Is the voice of that gentle folk,
Or else the horizon that spoke.
Its metal is not of brass,
But air, and water, and glass,
And under a cloud it is swung,
And by the wind it is rung.
When the steeple tolleth the noon,
It soundeth not so soon,
Yet it rings a far earlier hour,
And the sun has not reached its tower.
On the other hand, the road runs up to Carlisle, city of the
woods, which, if it is less civil, is the more natural. It does
well hold the earth together. It gets laughed at because it is a
small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a place where great
men may be born any day, for fair winds and foul blow right on
over it without distinction. It has a meeting-house and
horse-sheds, a tavern and a blacksmith's shop, for centre, and a
good deal of wood to cut and cord yet. And
"Bedford, most noble Bedford,
I shall not thee forget."
History has remembered thee; especially that meek and humble
petition of thy old planters, like the wailing of the Lord's own
people, "To the gentlemen, the selectmen" of Concord, praying to
be erected into a separate parish. We can hardly credit that so
plaintive a psalm resounded but little more than a century ago
along these Babylonish waters. "In the extreme difficult seasons
of heat and cold," said they, "we were ready to say of the
Sabbath, Behold what a weariness is it." - "Gentlemen, if our
seeking to draw off proceed from any disaffection to our present
Reverend Pastor, or the Christian Society with whom we have taken
such sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in
company, then hear us not this day, but we greatly desire, if God
please, to be eased of our burden on the Sabbath, the travel and
fatigue thereof, that the word of God may be nigh to us, near to
our houses and in our hearts, that we and our little ones may
serve the Lord.
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