Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/265

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.
251

seems lonely without you. The meadows are like barren ground. The memory of me is steadily passing away from you. My path grows narrower and steeper, and the night is approaching. Yet I have faith that in the infinite future new suns will rise and new plains expand before me, and I trust I shall therein encounter pilgrims who bear that same virtue that I recognized in you, who will be that very virtue that was you. I accept the everlasting and salutary law which was promulgated as much that spring when I first knew you, as this when I seem to leave you.

My former friends, I visit you as one walks amid the columns of a ruined temple, you belong to an era, a civilization and glory long past. I recognize still your fair proportions, notwithstanding the convulsions we have felt, and the weeds and jackals that have sprung up around. I come here to be reminded of the past, to read your inscriptions, the hieroglyphics, the sacred writings. We are no longer the representatives of our former selves.

Love is a thirst, that is never slaked. Under the coarsest rind the sweetest meat. If you would read a friend aright you must be able to read through something thicker and opaquer than horn. If you can read a friend, all languages will be easy to you. Enemies publish