Russet-clad children,
lurking in those broad meadows, with the bittern and the woodcock
and the rail, though wholly concealed by brakes and hardhack and
meadow-sweet, heard our salute that afternoon.
We were soon floating past the first regular battle ground of the
Revolution, resting on our oars between the still visible
abutments of that "North Bridge," over which in April, 1775,
rolled the first faint tide of that war, which ceased not, till,
as we read on the stone on our right, it "gave peace to these
United States." As a Concord poet has sung: -
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
"The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps."
Our reflections had already acquired a historical remoteness from
the scenes we had left, and we ourselves essayed to sing.
Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din
That wakes the ignoble town,
Not thus did braver spirits win
A patriot's renown.
There is one field beside this stream,
Wherein no foot does fall,
But yet it beareth in my dream
A richer crop than all.
Let me believe a dream so dear,
Some heart beat high that day,
Above the petty Province here,
And Britain far away;
Some hero of the ancient mould,
Some arm of knightly worth,
Of strength unbought, and faith unsold,
Honored this spot of earth;
Who sought the prize his heart described,
And did not ask release,
Whose free-born valor was not bribed
By prospect of a peace.
The men who stood on yonder height
That day are long since gone;
Not the same hand directs the fight
And monumental stone.
Ye were the Grecian cities then,
The Romes of modern birth,
Where the New England husbandmen
Have shown a Roman worth.
In vain I search a foreign land
To find our Bunker Hill,
And Lexington and Concord stand
By no Laconian rill.
With such thoughts we swept gently by this now peaceful
pasture-ground, on waves of Concord, in which was long since
drowned the din of war.
But since we sailed
Some things have failed,
And many a dream
Gone down the stream.
Here then an aged shepherd dwelt,
Who to his flock his substance dealt,
And ruled them with a vigorous crook,
By precept of the sacred Book;
But he the pierless bridge passed o'er,
And solitary left the shore.
Anon a youthful pastor came,
Whose crook was not unknown to fame,
His lambs he viewed with gentle glance,
Spread o'er the country's wide expanse,
And fed with "Mosses from the Manse."
Here was our Hawthorne in the dale,
And here the shepherd told his tale.
That slight shaft had now sunk behind the hills, and we had
floated round the neighboring bend, and under the new North
Bridge between Ponkawtasset and the Poplar Hill, into the Great
Meadows, which, like a broad moccason print, have levelled a
fertile and juicy place in nature.
On Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way,
Down this still stream to far Billericay,
A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray
Doth often shine on Concord's twilight day.
Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high,
Shining more brightly as the day goes by,
Most travellers cannot at first descry,
But eyes that wont to range the evening sky,
And know celestial lights, do plainly see,
And gladly hail them, numbering two or three;
For lore that's deep must deeply studied be,
As from deep wells men read star-poetry.
These stars are never paled, though out of sight,
But like the sun they shine forever bright;
Ay, _they_ are suns, though earth must in its flight
Put out its eyes that it may see their light.
Who would neglect the least celestial sound,
Or faintest light that falls on earthly ground,
If he could know it one day would be found
That star in Cygnus whither we are bound,
And pale our sun with heavenly radiance round?
Gradually the village murmur subsided, and we seemed to be
embarked on the placid current of our dreams, floating from past
to future as silently as one awakes to fresh morning or evening
thoughts. We glided noiselessly down the stream, occasionally
driving a pickerel or a bream from the covert of the pads, and
the smaller bittern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings
from some recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of
the long grass at our approach, and carried its precious legs
away to deposit them in a place of safety. The tortoises also
rapidly dropped into the water, as our boat ruffled the surface
amid the willows, breaking the reflections of the trees. The
banks had passed the height of their beauty, and some of the
brighter flowers showed by their faded tints that the season was
verging towards the afternoon of the year; but this sombre tinge
enhanced their sincerity, and in the still unabated heats they
seemed like the mossy brink of some cool well. The narrow-leaved
willow (_Salix Purshiana_) lay along the surface of the water in
masses of light green foliage, interspersed with the large balls
of the button-bush. The small rose-colored polygonum raised its
head proudly above the water on either hand, and flowering at
this season and in these localities, in front of dense fields of
the white species which skirted the sides of the stream, its
little streak of red looked very rare and precious. The pure
white blossoms of the arrow-head stood in the shallower parts,
and a few cardinals on the margin still proudly surveyed
themselves reflected in the water, though the latter, as well
as the pickerel-weed, was now nearly out of blossom.
