His Skies Are
Shoal, And Imagination, Like A Thirsty Traveller, Pants To Be
Through Their Desert.
The roving mind impatiently bursts the
fetters of astronomical orbits, like cobwebs in a corner of its
universe, and
Launches itself to where distance fails to follow,
and law, such as science has discovered, grows weak and weary.
The mind knows a distance and a space of which all those sums
combined do not make a unit of measure, - the interval between
that which _appears_, and that which _is_. I know that there are
many stars, I know that they are far enough off, bright enough,
steady enough in their orbits, - but what are they all worth?
They are more waste land in the West, - star territory, - to be
made slave States, perchance, if we colonize them. I have
interest but for six feet of star, and that interest is
transient. Then farewell to all ye bodies, such as I have known
ye.
Every man, if he is wise, will stand on such bottom as will
sustain him, and if one gravitates downward more strongly than
another, he will not venture on those meads where the latter
walks securely, but rather leave the cranberries which grow there
unraked by himself. Perchance, some spring a higher freshet will
float them within his reach, though they may be watery and
frost-bitten by that time. Such shrivelled berries I have seen
in many a poor man's garret, ay, in many a church-bin and
state-coffer, and with a little water and heat they swell again
to their original size and fairness, and added sugar enough,
stead mankind for sauce to this world's dish.
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