It may be that I am not competent to
write the poetry of the grave. The farmer who has skimmed his
farm might perchance leave his body to Nature to be ploughed in,
and in some measure restore its fertility. We should not retard
but forward her economies.
Soon the village of Nashua was out of sight, and the woods were
gained again, and we rowed slowly on before sunset, looking for a
solitary place in which to spend the night. A few evening clouds
began to be reflected in the water and the surface was dimpled
only here and there by a muskrat crossing the stream. We camped
at length near Penichook Brook, on the confines of what is now
Nashville, by a deep ravine, under the skirts of a pine wood,
where the dead pine-leaves were our carpet, and their tawny
boughs stretched overhead. But fire and smoke soon tamed the
scene; the rocks consented to be our walls, and the pines our
roof. A woodside was already the fittest locality for us.
The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the
oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which
surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is
something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect
of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of
new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have
sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and
maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our
lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine
flourishes and the jay still screams.
We had found a safe harbor for our boat, and as the sun was
setting carried up our furniture, and soon arranged our house
upon the bank, and while the kettle steamed at the tent door, we
chatted of distant friends and of the sights which we were to
behold, and wondered which way the towns lay from us. Our cocoa
was soon boiled, and supper set upon our chest, and we lengthened
out this meal, like old voyageurs, with our talk. Meanwhile we
spread the map on the ground, and read in the Gazetteer when the
first settlers came here and got a township granted. Then, when
supper was done and we had written the journal of our voyage, we
wrapped our buffaloes about us and lay down with our heads
pillowed on our arms listening awhile to the distant baying of a
dog, or the murmurs of the river, or to the wind, which had not
gone to rest: -
The western wind came lumbering in,
Bearing a faint Pacific din,
Our evening mail, swift at the call
Of its Postmaster General;
Laden with news from Californ',
Whate'er transpired hath since morn,
How wags the world by brier and brake
From hence to Athabasca Lake; -
or half awake and half asleep, dreaming of a star which glimmered
through our cotton roof. Perhaps at midnight one was awakened by
a cricket shrilly singing on his shoulder, or by a hunting spider
in his eye, and was lulled asleep again by some streamlet purling
its way along at the bottom of a wooded and rocky ravine in our
neighborhood. It was pleasant to lie with our heads so low in
the grass, and hear what a tinkling ever-busy laboratory it was.
A thousand little artisans beat on their anvils all night long.
Far in the night as we were falling asleep on the bank of the
Merrimack, we heard some tyro beating a drum incessantly, in
preparation for a country muster, as we learned, and we thought
of the line, -
"When the drum beat at dead of night."
We could have assured him that his beat would be answered, and
the forces be mustered. Fear not, thou drummer of the night, we
too will be there. And still he drummed on in the silence and
the dark. This stray sound from a far-off sphere came to our
ears from time to time, far, sweet, and significant, and we
listened with such an unprejudiced sense as if for the first time
we heard at all. No doubt he was an insignificant drummer
enough, but his music afforded us a prime and leisure hour, and
we felt that we were in season wholly. These simple sounds
related us to the stars. Ay, there was a logic in them so
convincing that the combined sense of mankind could never make me
doubt their conclusions. I stop my habitual thinking, as if the
plough had suddenly run deeper in its furrow through the crust of
the world. How can I go on, who have just stepped over such a
bottomless skylight in the bog of my life. Suddenly old Time
winked at me, - Ah, you know me, you rogue, - and news had come
that IT was well. That ancient universe is in such capital
health, I think undoubtedly it will never die. Heal yourselves,
doctors; by God, I live.
Then idle Time ran gadding by
And left me with Eternity alone;
I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the verge of sight, -
I see, smell, taste, hear, feel, that everlasting Something to
which we are allied, at once our maker, our abode, our destiny,
our very Selves; the one historic truth, the most remarkable fact
which can become the distinct and uninvited subject of our
thought, the actual glory of the universe; the only fact which a
human being cannot avoid recognizing, or in some way forget or
dispense with.
It doth expand my privacies
To all, and leave me single in the crowd.
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have
not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life.
I will not doubt the love untold,
Which not my worth nor want hath bought,
Which wooed me young and wooes me old,
And to this evening hath me brought.
