The spell of inspiration lingered not; But ere it passed, I knew my destiny-- The passion and the portion of my life: Though, with the new-born consciousness of power And organizing and creative skill, There came a sense of poverty--a sense Of power untrained, of skill without resource, Of ignorance of Nature and her laws And language and the learning of the schools. I could not rise upon my callow wings, But felt that I must wait until the years Should give them plumage, and the skill for flight Be won by trial. Then before me rose The long, long years of study, interposed Between me and the goal that shone afar; But with them rose the courage to surmount, And I was girt for toil. Then, for the first, My eye and spirit that had drunk the whole Wide vision, grew discriminate, and traced The crystal river pouring from the North Its twinkling tide, and winding down the vale, Till, doubling in a serpent coil, it paused Before the chasm that parts the frontal spurs Of Tom and Holyoke; then in wreathing light Sped the swart rocks, and sought the misty South. Across the meadows--carpet for the gods, Woven of ripening rye and greening maize And rosy clover-blooms, and spotted o'er With the black shadows of the feathery elms-- Northampton rose, half hidden in her trees, Lifted above the level of the fields, And noiseless as a picture. At my feet The ferry-boat, diminished to a toy, With automatic diligence conveyed Its puppet passengers between the shores That hemmed its enterprise; and one low barge, With white, square sail, bore northward languidly The slow and scanty commerce of the stream. Eastward, upon another fertile stretch Of meadow-sward and tilth, embowered in elms, Lay the twin streets, and sprang the single spire Of Hadley, where the hunted regicides Securely lived of old, and strangely died; And eastward still, upon the last green step From which the Angel of the Morning Light Leaps to the meadow-lands, fair Amherst sat, Capped by her many-windowed colleges; While from his outpost in the rising North, Bald with the storms and ruddy with the suns Of the long eons, stood old Sugarloaf, Gazing with changeless brow upon a scene, Changing to fairer beauty evermore.