University of Virginia Library

I like this Princeton, a most silent place,
Better than Chester, that I loved to pace
So many years ago; is stiller far,
Less people, they not caring who you are,
While Chester mortals have a certain wit,
By which they know you, or can fancy it.
In Princeton live a few good farming people,
Like spectres in a church-yard, while a steeple
Is pretty nigh the village, and one inn
Which Sam. Carr keeps, lonely and cool within,
One of the country taverns built before
Our recollection, shortly after Noah.
Here Boston sportsmen stop with dog and gun,
To bag shy Woodcock, and have quiet fun,
A ruddy, cheerful race, who interfere
Never with you, in truth know not you are.
No perfumed dandies smirch the lonely roads,
No artists wander with their sketchy loads,
'Tis then a proper place for us to go,
Who love old solitude and hate new show.
I think it a good spot without this hill
Wachusett,—a small mountain, cool and still
As Princeton. To the summit is easy,
With scattered outlooks picturesque and breezy,
Not as flat level as a Salem beach,
And yet within a feeble body's reach.
A pleasant ramble up a rocky steep,
'Neath shady woodlands, where some Woodgods sleep,
Where maples, shad-barks, silver birches shine,
Second-growth forest where gay trees combine.

It has no grandeur like the proud White Hills,
No cataract's thunder, steal no crystal rills
Like those which line the Catskills half the way,
And furnish comfort in a summer's day,
But the road up is dry as Minot's tongue,
Or city people chance together flung.
And off the summit one sees villages,
Church spires, white houses, and their belts of trees,
Plenty of farmers' clearings, and some woods,
But no remote Sierra solitudes.
I never counted up the list of towns,
That I can see spread on the rolling downs,
Or sought for names of mountains on the map,
As Jackson might who is a Scenery-trap,
But to my notion there is matter here,
As pleasant as if larger or severe.
'Tis plain New England, neither more nor less,
Pure Massachusetts-looking, in plain dress;
From every village point at least three spires,
To satiate the good villagers' desires,
Baptist, and Methodist, and Orthodox,
And even Unitarian, creed that shocks
Established church-folk; they are one to me,
Who in the different creeds the same things see,
But I love dearly to look down at them,
In rocky landscapes like Jerusalem.
The villages gleam out painted with white,
Like paper castles are the houses light,
And every gust that o'er the valley blows,
May scatter them perchance like drifting snows.
The little streams that thread the valleys small,
Make scythes or axes, driving factories all,
The ponds are damned, and e'en the petty brooks,
Convert to sluices swell the River's crooks,
And where the land 's so poor, it will not pay
For farming, winds the Railroad's yellow way.

If in the Student's eye, this Yankee vein
Of pure utility is but pure pain,
If he shall ask for august Palace wall,
Or figured arch, or learned College hall;
If he seek Landscape gardens midst those trees,
Where hammers trip it like the hum of bees,
Instead of corn-land for the shaven Lawn,
Or one sane man who will his life adorn,
Not a dry rank of Grocers, or of shops,
Or women sometime conversant with mops,
He asks for that Wachusett does not see,
A watch-tower guarding pure utility.
Why does the Student question what there is?
Grant it not Grecian, it is surely his;
Born in New England in her useful mood,
Let him not feel as if in solitude;
The child of railroads, Factories, and farms,
Let him not stand beside them with closed arms.
Dwells not within the Locomotive's heart
One of the purest ministries of Art,
Can Poet feign more airy character,
This burdened train few drops of water stir.
Hear how it thunders down the iron road,
Invulnerable horse, who drags a load,
No matter what its shape, or weight, to him,
Gallops by noon, and speechless midnight dim,
Careless across the trembling, sunken moors,
Under the mountains, past the people's doors,
Through forest-thickets where the Partridge drums,
Along the sea-beach where the salt spray comes,
Hurled by the exercise of human thought,
The man-created beast shows matter nought.
Within his magic mind, a dreamy boy
Converts this iron to a living toy,
Shuts in a moment power of distances,
Bids granite dance, and iron axles wince.
Who cares what is the weather, good or bad,
Within the Rail-car pleasant can be had,—
Who cares where is the city, by his door,
Rolls the swift engine, circling countries o'er.

The Student grants it thus,—but selfish trade
Along the fair inventions closely laid,
Converts the country to a cunning town,
Nothing can stand save beating prices down.
Man's temple is the market, and his God
Is money, fall of dollars Jovian nod.
Society is leagued against the poor,
Monopolies close up from most the door
To fortune, Industry has come to be
Competitive, all,—aristocracy;
Work is monotonous, a war for wealth,
The universe is plainly out of health.
See from this mountain in the dusty towns,
A people sorely burdened, for smiles,—frowns,
No lovely groups of rustics dig the soil,
Alone each farmer ploughs, his greedy toil
Not shared with them about him, but his hand
Closed against those, who may the nearest stand.
A piteous sight, there is the Poor-house wall,
A frightful thing, there is the Prison's hall,
The courts of Justice fatten on the broil,
The church lamps feed on poor men's sweaty oil,
Where shall this misery end, has God forsook
The dwellers in these valleys, from the Book
Of Life their names forever razed; I see
Nothing around us but deep misery.

So spoke the Student; in his eye swam tears,
A sincere man, whose mournful, thoughtful years,
Have run away in longings for that good,
Which finds he only in some solitude,
Where swing in sunny distances the trees,
And squirrels chirp in frolic to the breeze,
And o'er the grass the green snake winds along,
Curving himself in like the Brook's clear song,
Where pigeons glance about the murmuring boughs,
And beetles hum, and the tall Pine-tree soughs.—
Dear student, in that life, so sad to thee,
Is better Nature, than all this to me.
Thou dost not feel the sweetness of the art,
When strikes the farmer in the earth his heart;
His crops are wise instructions of the power,
Which off his fingers reels the fruitful hour;
With a father's fondness, o'er his rich Fields
He looks content, and what the out-door yields,
Within his bosom meets its answering tone,
Nor is he satisfied to hold alone
This credit of the world, but with his friend
Who owns yon meadow, does his harvest blend
In fair exchanges, as the honest earth
For his just thoughts alone its crop gives birth.
The neighbor in his mind, has his fit place,
And trade is the keen Wizard's shifting mace
By which he deals in untold craftiness
With those about him; they in turn confess
The profit which this prudent Industry
Has made for them, and kept their wits at sea.
'Tis always the concealed, mysterious thought
Which in his bargains somewhere shall be caught;
This competition is the mystic thing,
He does not know its strength or power of wing,
And only on his neighbor tries its force,
Who can for him interpret its true source.—
What is the cheer within the village street,
Which makes the Court, the Jail, the Church complete,
Save that each day 't is a new birth of mind,
And these new men experiments can find?
So like a laboratory smells the town,
These villagers the chemists,—skill the crown
Which decks the royal head,—he is a King,
Who from his cunning competence can bring.
Shall witty scheme or formula compare
With Nature's secret force, which can prepare
Each hour new tactics for this village war,
So gently waged, so little do they jar.
And who do tenant then the Poor-house wall,
And who are fastened in the Prison's hall,
But those that baulk kind Nature in her play,
Who thus has laid them up, and stored away.
Is trade no happier than the game of old,
When iron muscles played the trick for gold,
When Barons led their fierce retainers forth,
Like Kurroglou and battered down the earth,
When no man's life was safe in wood or street,
And the whole neighborhood a martial beat.
Much I prefer to sit on Princeton hill,
And see around me the results of skill,
Where Mind does own the making of the thing,
The age of muscle having had its swing.
Are there no dear emotions in the vale,
Does not the Maiden hear the lover's wail,
Breathe gently forth below the Chesnut shade,
Does not her bosom heave, and blushes fade
Momently on her cheek, like shadows flying
Across the woodlands while soft day is dying
Upon that range of Hampshire hills,—does ago
No sweet respect from its young heirs engage,
Sounds not the running Schoolboy's chorus cry,
And village girls do they not smile and sigh;
Are not the wrinkles in that old man's brows,
The fruit of battle with the winter snows,
Or honest strokes beneath the summer's sun,
Of his swift scythe, those curvatures have run;
Are there no merry parties for the lakes,
And nutting frolics in the forest's brakes;
The horse, the cow, and dog play merry part,
The humblest village beats with cheery heart.
Within the plainest School-house lore is writ
As good as Bible-story, part of it;
The city claims a visit every year,
The Cattle-show is held each season near,
A thousand books fly everywhere about,
Of which the secret quickly is torn out,
Sweet bread, rich milk, and apples weigh the board,
The village, by its trade, doth spend not hoard.
He who has craft, he gets respect from all,
He who has none, by his deserts doth fall
To his true level, and Nature dwelling here
Pours out her sacred Instinct strong and clear.
The Student said,—If all this, truly so,
A stagnant element cakes deep below,
The threadbare relic of the elder age,
The heirloom of Judea, that sad page
Recording the fantastic miracles
Done in that day, which read like jugglers' spells,
Or incantations in a tiresome play,
Which later editors might crib away.
How sadly serious is Religion now,
That Seraph with her sparkling, crystal brow,
In whose deep humane eyes the world should read,
Tenderest consolation, and not bleed
At their cold, spectral, grim, forlorn replies,
Like one who stares at us with mere glass eyes.
What awkward repetitions of a Creed,
The pulpit and the minister, indeed,
Where congregations meet for gossipping,
Or boys for show, and girls to learn to sing.
Is this Religion,—Nature's other self,
Or the last issue of the thirst for pelf,
How cold to me the worn church-service is,
I wonder that some people do not hiss.—
O Student learn a wiser lore than thine,
Deem me presumptuous, do not call it mine;
A lore I read upon the steel-blue lakes,
And in the piled white clouds, this soft wind takes
Like sailing navies, o'er the Atlantic heaven,
A lore by Spirits to this mortal given,
That teaches in whate'er our souls revere,
Is the pure oxygen of that atmosphere,
Which God presents our race to freely breathe,
Which he does finely through our beings wreathe,
And that we reverence has power sublime,
Whether it be the birth of olden time,
Or the last Spirit-prophecy of him
Who dwelt on earth, a mild-eyed Seraphim.
O Jesus, if thy spirit haunts that vale
Whence softly on the air, the Church-bells wail,
Swells up this silent mount, a prophecy,
That thou didst teach our souls could never die;
If to some lonely heart, thy memory brings
The healing of thy Beauty on its wings,
And to this gentle heart its truth does say,
That thou wert mild and gentle, pure alway;
Does promise after that hath left this shore,
And when no longer sounds this hurried roar
Of eager life, a rest in sacred camps,
Where holy Angels tend unfading lamps,
Where all that here this lowly heart did love,
Dwells in the sunshine of that sphere above;
Where never sorrow, and where never pain
Creep o'er the mind, as on the flowers the rain
Of early winter, crossing out their flame;
Where music sounds perpetual the name
Of an eternal Beauty, and where day
Dies not in shadow on a mournful way;
Where shall that lowly heart meet better earth
Than here was present, where shall a new birth,
Quicken her faculties low lying sere,
And thought's rich Compensation shall appear;
If thus to one pure heart in any vale,
Above which now these vast white clouds do sail,
Thy lesson comes, though taught by miracles,
And in the dark contrivances of spells,
Yet shall each Church to me an altar seem,
Of sculpture lovely as a maiden's dream,
The lowly Hymn-book claim my gratitude,
The least frail office chain my darkest mood,
For I must feel such souls do dwell on earth,
Who look afar for an immortal birth,
And thou, serenest Jesus, art to them,
The lustrous mild-eyed, blissful Seraphim.

It is a busy mountain,—the wind's song
Levels so briskly the oak-tops along,
Which light October frosts color like wine,
That ripens red on warm Madeira's line.
I hear the rustling plumes of these young woods,
Like young cockerels crowing to the solitudes
While o'er the far horizon trails a mist,
A kind of autumn smoke or blaze,—I list,
Again, a lively song the woods do sing,
The smoke-fire drifts about painting a ring
Sublime, the centre of which is the mountain;
It rises like the cloud of some dark fountain
At even-song; the Indian summer's voice,
Bids me in this last tropic day rejoice.
How brown the country is, what want of rain,
But no crops growing, no one will complain.
The Indian summer, wan and waste and tame,
Like the red nation whence it takes its name,
Some relic of the season, a faint heat
Which momently must into Winter fleet,
The dying of the year,—the Indian time,
How well they name it, how it suits the clime.
The race who on this mountain once might stand,
The country's monarchs wide on either hand,
Bold as the July heats, and vigorous
As August tempests, and more glorious
Than splendid summer Moonlights, where are they?
Ah, like this summer, they did fade away
Into the white snows of that winter race,
Who came with iron hands and pallid face,
Nor could the Indian look within his eye;
They turned, their frosts had come, their blight was nigh;
Some praise their stately figure, or their skill,
They straight submitted to the White man's will,
Their only monument, a fading week,
The Indian summer; like the hectic cheek
Of a consumptive girl who ere her time,
In some gay anguish half renews her prime,
Shines in one summer moment, e'er the frost
Crimsons her foliage before all is lost.

Now the veiled sun is drooping to his fall,
Weaving the western landscape a thick pall
From the gigantic Air-smoke, through it slant
His stretching beams, the mighty figures daunt
The eye, far-shading level smoke that side,
While eastward the white towns in sunshine ride.
But all around this wonderful, wild haze,
Like a hot crucible wherein the days
And nights are melted by a giant hand,
A terrible world, neither sea nor land,
As if at last old earth had caught on fire,
And slowly mouldering, sank into the pyre.
To the dull north, a skeleton so dim,
Is gray Monadnoc's head, and half of him,
Looming out vaguely, as Gibraltar's rock
Off Estepona, when the east wind's shock
After a long gale from the sparkling west,
Comes coldly down, but warms the seaman's breast,
Anxious to fly Mediterranean calm,
And clasp the ocean with his daring palm.
Beneath the sun, like Saladin's bright blade,
One glittering lake cuts golden the wide shade,
And on some faint-drawn hill-sides fires are burning,
The far blue smoke their outlines soft in-urning,
And now half-seen the Peterboro' hills,
Peep out like black-fish, nothing but their gills.
Each feature of the scene itself confounded.
Like Turner's pallet with strange colors grounded,
It seems to gain upon me, shut me in,
Creeps up to the brown belfry where I spin
My fancies, like that last Man Campbell painted,
Who finally 't is to be hoped was sainted.

Who can be sad and live upon this earth,
A scene like this would make a Hermit mirth,
And turn mankind to Painters, or forswear
All sympathies save with this landscape-air,
While comes the breeze as gently as caress
Of pensive lovers in first blessedness.
A yellow tone sweeps southward the horizon,
The sun to weaving deeper shadows plies on,
More mountains loom, and hills burst up like isles
Shot in the sea by Earth's galvanic piles;
One clear black spot hangs o'er the valley there,
A solitary Hawk balanced on air;
Banks of gray squall-clouds swell below the sun,
The lake turns steel, another sketch begun,
Each instant changes everywhere the scene,
Rapid and perfect turns the Indian screen.
There comes a firmer yellow to the North,
The sun just opening showers more glories forth,
A lakelet dazzles like a bursting star,
The landscape widens in that Hampshire far,
The swelling lines of nearer hills arise,
The greater mountains ope their dreamy eyes;
Out bursts the sun, turns villages to gold,
Blazons the cold lake, burns the near cloud's fold,
Drops splendidly a curtain of warm tints,
And at an apple-green divinely hints.
What land is this, not my New England drear?
'Tis Spain's south border, or warm Naples' cheer,
Sweet Provènce smiles upon the western side,
And Azores' velvet on the molten tide.
I see in front the great Savannahs lie,—
The endless deserts burnt by Afric's eye,
Shine in that dusky land the Moor's delight;
'Tis Tangiers yonder and dark Atlas' height,
Or Mauritania with her sable skins,
And gold-dust rivers, elephants and kings,
And yonder looms the sandy Arab coast,
With yellow tassels of the Palm all crost,
And in that valley bakes a torrid Fez;
He is not right, who our New England says
Is a dread, cold inhospitable realm,—
Guides not the South this glowing landscape's helm?

I hear the cawing of some drifting crows,
Beneath in villages the watch-dog blows
His bayings to the scene, and King-birds shriek,
And stronger breezes fan the happy cheek,
While purest roseate turns the western sky,
Laughing to think that night has drawn so nigh.
And like a ball of melted iron glows
The sinking sun, leaves his last veil, and throws
Upon the Eastern hills a gentle red,
Upon those skies his rosy pencil spread,
Then dies within that stormy mountain cloud,
That masks him proudly in a leaden shroud.