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?
Even beyond the West
Thou migratest,
Into unclouded tracts,
Without a pilgrim's axe,
Cleaving thy road on high
With thy well-tempered brow,
And mak'st thyself a clearing in the sky.
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!
At length, like Rasselas and other inhabitants of happy valleys,
we had resolved to scale the blue wall which bounded the western
horizon, though not without misgivings that thereafter no visible
fairy-land would exist for us. But it would be long to tell of
our adventures, and we have no time this afternoon, transporting
ourselves in imagination up this hazy Nashua valley, to go over
again that pilgrimage. We have since made many similar
excursions to the principal mountains of New England and New
York, and even far in the wilderness, and have passed a night on
the summit of many of them. And now, when we look again westward
from our native hills, Wachusett and Monadnock have retreated
once more among the blue and fabulous mountains in the horizon,
though our eyes rest on the very rocks on both of them, where we
have pitched our tent for a night, and boiled our hasty-pudding
amid the clouds.
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