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.
