No More Learning

[4] A white robin and a white quail have occasionally been seen. It is
mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should be
found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than
most in the choice of a building-spot. I have seen its nest placed
under the thatched roof of a deserted barn, and in one instance, where
the adjacent country was nearly destitute of trees, together with two
of the phoebe, upon the end of a board in the loft of a sawmill, but
a few feet from the saw, which vibrated several inches with the motion
of the machinery.

[5] This bird, which is so well described by Nuttall, but is
apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most
common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard
the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it "yorrick," from
the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the
traveler through the underwood. The cowbird's egg is occasionally
found in its nest, as mentioned by Audubon.




A WALK TO WACHUSETT

CONCORD, July 19, 1842.

The needles of the pine
All to the west incline.


Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the
mountains in our horizon, to which distance and indistinctness lent a
grandeur not their own, so that they served equally to interpret all
the allusions of poets and travelers; whether with Homer, on a spring
morning, we sat down on the many-peaked Olympus, or with Virgil and
his compeers roamed the Etrurian and Thessalian hills, or with
Humboldt measured the more modern Andes and Teneriffe. Thus we spoke
our mind to them, standing on the Concord cliffs:--

With frontier strength ye stand your ground,
With grand content ye circle round,
Tumultuous silence for all sound,
Ye distant nursery of rills,
Monadnock, and the Peterboro' hills;
Like some vast fleet,
Sailing through rain and sleet,
Through winter's cold and summer's heat;
Still holding on, upon your high emprise,
Until ye find a shore amid the skies;
Not skulking close to land,
With cargo contraband,
For they who sent a venture out by ye
Have set the sun to see
Their honesty.
Ships of the line, each one,
Ye to the westward run,
Always before the gale,
Under a press of sail,
With weight of metal all untold.
I seem to feel ye, in my firm seat here,
Immeasurable depth of hold,
And breadth of beam, and length of running gear.

Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure
In your novel western leisure;
So cool your brows, and freshly blue,
As Time had nought for ye to do;
For ye lie at your length,
An unappropriated strength,
Unhewn primeval timber,
For knees so stiff, for masts so limber;
The stock of which new earths are made
One day to be our western trade,
Fit for the stanchions of a world
Which through the seas of space is hurled.

While we enjoy a lingering ray,
Ye still o'ertop the western day,
Reposing yonder, on God's croft,
Like solid stacks of hay.
Edged with silver, and with gold,
The clouds hang o'er in damask fold,
And with such depth of amber light
The west is dight,
Where still a few rays slant,
That even heaven seems extravagant.
On the earth's edge mountains and trees
Stand as they were on air graven,
Or as the vessels in a haven
Await the morning breeze.
I fancy even
Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven;
And yonder still, in spite of history's page,
Linger the golden and the silver age;
Upon the laboring gale
The news of future centuries is brought,
And of new dynasties of thought,
From your remotest vale.

But special I remember thee,
Wachusett, who like me
Standest alone without society.
Thy far blue eye,
A remnant of the sky,
Seen through the clearing or the gorge
Or from the windows of the forge,
Doth leaven all it passes by.
Nothing is true,
But stands 'tween me and you,
Thou western pioneer,
Who know'st not shame nor fear
By venturous spirit driven,
Under the eaves of heaven.
And canst expand thee there,
And breathe enough of air?
Upholding heaven, holding down earth,
Thy pastime from thy birth,
Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other;
May I approve myself thy worthy brother!

[Illustration: _Mount Wachusett from the Wayland Hills_]

At length, like Rasselas, and other inhabitants of happy valleys, we
resolved to scale the blue wall which bounded the western horizon,
though not without misgivings that thereafter no visible fairyland
would exist for us. But we will not leap at once to our journey's end,
though near, but imitate Homer, who conducts his reader over the
plain, and along the resounding sea, though it be but to the tent of
Achilles. In the spaces of thought are the reaches of land and water,
where men go and come. The landscape lies far and fair within, and the
deepest thinker is the farthest traveled.

At a cool and early hour on a pleasant morning in July, my companion
and I passed rapidly through Acton and Stow, stopping to rest and
refresh us on the bank of a small stream, a tributary of the Assabet,
in the latter town. As we traversed the cool woods of Acton, with
stout staves in our hands, we were cheered by the song of the red-eye,
the thrushes, the phoebe, and the cuckoo; and as we passed through
the open country, we inhaled the fresh scent of every field, and all
nature lay passive, to be viewed and traveled. Every rail, every
farmhouse, seen dimly in the twilight, every tinkling sound told of
peace and purity, and we moved happily along the dank roads, enjoying
not such privacy as the day leaves when it withdraws, but such as it
has not profaned. It was solitude with light; which is better than
darkness. But anon, the sound of the mower's rifle was heard in the
fields, and this, too, mingled with the lowing of kine.