The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing, For elegy has other subject none; Each strain of music in my ears shall ring Knell of departure from that other one. Make haste and celebrate my tragedy; With fitting strain resound, ye woods and fields; Sorrow is dearer in such case to me Than all the joys other occasion yields. Is't then too late the damage to repair? Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp hath reft The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare, But in my hands the wheat and kernel left. If I but love that virtue which he is, Though it be scented in the morning air, Still shall we be truest acquaintances, Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare. THE "BOOK OF GEMS" _July 4._ With cunning plates the polished leaves were decked, Each one a window to the poet's world, So rich a prospect that you might suspect In that small space all paradise unfurled. It was a right delightful road to go, Marching through pastures of such fair herbage, O'er hill and dale it led, and to and fro, From bard to bard, making an easy stage; Where ever and anon I slaked my thirst Like a tired traveller at some poet's well, Which from the teeming ground did bubbling burst, And tinkling thence adown the page it fell. Still through the leaves its music you might hear, Till other springs fell faintly on the ear. ANNURSNACK _July 11._ At length we leave the river and take to the road which leads to the hilltop, if by any means we may spy out what manner of earth we inhabit. East, west, north, and south, it is farm and parish, this world of ours. One may see how at convenient, eternal intervals men have settled themselves, without thought for the universe. How little matters it all they have built and delved there in the valley! It is after all but a feature in the landscape. Still the vast impulse of nature breathes over all. The eternal winds sweep across the interval _to-day_, bringing mist and haze to shut out their works. Still the crow caws from Nawshawtuct to Annursnack, as no feeble tradesman nor smith may do. And in all swamps the hum of mosquitoes drowns this modern hum of industry. [Illustration: _View from Annursnack Hill_] EVERY MAN IS A ROMAN FORUM All things are up and down, east and west, to _me_. In me is the forum out of which go the Appian and Sacred ways, and a thousand beside, to the ends of the world. If I forget my centralness, and say a bean winds with or against the _sun_, and not right or left, it will not be true south of the equator. THE ASSABET _July 18._ Up this pleasant stream let's row For the livelong summer's day, Sprinkling foam where'er we go In wreaths as white as driven snow. Ply the oars! away! away![57]