In Adirondac lakes, At morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded; 90 Three times ten thousand strokes, from morn to eve. Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen! 95 They are the doctors of the wilderness, In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test What make you, master, fumbling at the oar? 100 Will you catch crabs? Truth tries pretension here. The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb; The oar, the guide's. Dare you accept the tasks 105 Or stumbling on through vast sclf-similar woods To thread by night the nearest way to camp? Ask you, how went the hours? All day we swept the lake, searched every cove, North from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay, 110 Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer, Or whipping its rough surface for a trout; Hark to that muffled roar! a tree in the woods 114. Thoreau, in Walden, has an admirable account of the loon and its habits. "His usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl; but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long drawn, unearthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any bird; as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls. This was his looning, perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he laughed in derision at my efforts, confident of his own resources." Page 254. 116. One of Mr. Emerson's companions in this excursion, Stillman the artist, painted The Procession of the Pines, the aspect, so familiar to the woodman, of a line of pines upon a hilltop outlined against the evening sky, and seeming to be marching solemnly. 125 Who stands astonished at the meteor light, Sometimes we tried our rifles at a mark, Two Doctors in the camp Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain, 135 Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew, Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow, and moth Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss; 140 Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds. Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants, '45 Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls. 132. See Hawthorne's story of The Great Carbuncle. Lords of this realm, Bounded by dawn and sunset, and the day Rounded by hours where each outdid the last 155 In miracles of pomp, we must be proud,. As if associates of the sylvan gods. We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac, So pure the Alpine element we breathed, So light, so lofty pictures came and went. 160 We trode on air, contemned the distant town, Its timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned That we should build, hard-by, a spacious lodge, And how we should come hither with our sons, Hereafter, willing they, and more adroit. 165 Hard fare, hard bed, and comic misery, - 170 Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names. For who defends our leafy tabernacle From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd, - Our foaming ale we drank from hunters' pans, Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread; 180 All ate like abbots, and, if any missed Their wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss With hunter's appetite and peals of mirth. And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodore, 183. Stillman left his own record of this excursion in a prose Crusoe, Crusader, Pius Eneas, said aloud, 185 "Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating Food indigestible: " then murmured some, Others applauded him who spoke the truth. Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday 195 'Mid all the hints and glories of the home. For who can tell what sudden privacies Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry Of scholars furloughed from their tasks, and let Into this Oreads' fended Paradise, 195 As chapels in the city's thoroughfares, Whither gaunt Labor slips to wipe his brow, 200 To spiritual lessons pointed home. And as through dreams in watches of the night, Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense 205 Inviting to new knowledge, one with old. Hark to that petulant chirp! what ails the war Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye. 210 Thirsting in that pure for a purer sky? And presently the sky is changed; O World! What pictures and what harmonies are thine! paper, The Subjective of It, published in The Atlantic Monthly for December, 1858. In that paper he speaks of the procession. of the pines. |