When We Had
Pitched Our Tent On The Hillside, A Few Rods From The Shore, We
Sat Looking Through Its
Triangular door in the twilight at our
lonely mast on the shore, just seen above the alders, and hardly
yet
Come to a stand-still from the swaying of the stream; the
first encroachment of commerce on this land. There was our port,
our Ostia. That straight geometrical line against the water and
the sky stood for the last refinements of civilized life, and
what of sublimity there is in history was there symbolized.
For the most part, there was no recognition of human life in the
night, no human breathing was heard, only the breathing of the
wind. As we sat up, kept awake by the novelty of our situation,
we heard at intervals foxes stepping about over the dead leaves,
and brushing the dewy grass close to our tent, and once a
musquash fumbling among the potatoes and melons in our boat, but
when we hastened to the shore we could detect only a ripple in
the water ruffling the disk of a star. At intervals we were
serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow or the throttled cry
of an owl, but after each sound which near at hand broke the
stillness of the night, each crackling of the twigs, or rustling
among the leaves, there was a sudden pause, and deeper and more
conscious silence, as if the intruder were aware that no life was
rightfully abroad at that hour.
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