They are to us instead of the beaver. The wind from over the meadows is laden with a strong scent of musk, and by its racy freshness advertises us of an unexplored wildness. Those backwoods are not far off. I am affected by the sight of their cabins of mud and grass, raised four or five feet, along the river, as when I read of the Pyramids, or the barrows of Asia.[115] People step brisker in the street for this unusual movement of the waters. You seem to hear the roar of a waterfall and the din of factories where the river breaks over the road. Who would have thought that a few feet might not have been spared from the trunks of most trees? Such as grow in the meadows, and are now surrounded by that depth of water, have a dwarfish appearance. No matter whether they are longer or shorter, they are now equally out of proportion. THE FRESHET _Feb. 24._ A stir is on the Worcester hills, And Nobscot too the valley fills; Where scarce you'd fill an acorn cup In summer when the sun was up, No more you'll find a cup at all, But in its place a waterfall. O that the moon were in conjunction To the dry land's extremest unction, Till every dike and pier were flooded, And all the land with islands studded, For once to teach all human kind, Both those that plow and those that grind, There is no fixture in the land, But all unstable is as sand. The river swelleth more and more, Like some sweet influence stealing o'er The passive town; and for a while Each tussock makes a tiny isle, Where, on some friendly Ararat, Resteth the weary water-rat. No ripple shows Musketaquid, Her very current e'en is hid, As deepest souls do calmest rest When thoughts are swelling in the breast; And she, that in the summer's drought Doth make a rippling and a rout, Sleeps from Nawshawtuct to the Cliff, Unruffled by a single skiff; So like a deep and placid mind Whose currents underneath it wind, For by a thousand distant hills The louder roar a thousand rills, And many a spring which now is dumb, And many a stream with smothered hum, Doth faster well and swifter glide, Though buried deep beneath the tide. Our village shows a rural Venice, Its broad lagunes where yonder fen is, Far lovelier than the Bay of Naples Yon placid cove amid the maples, And in my neighbor's field of corn I recognize the Golden Horn. Here Nature taught from year to year, When only red men came to hear, Methinks 'twas in this school of art Venice and Naples learned their part, But still their mistress, to my mind, Her young disciples leaves behind.[116]