he wrote "The Fisher's Boy," with strong self-revelation and vivid picture, one of the poems deemed worthy, by Mr. Stedman, of a place in his American Anthology:
"My life is like a stroll upon the beach,
As near the ocean's edge as I can go;
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o'er reach,
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.
*******
"I have but few companions on the shore,
They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea;
Yet oft I think the ocean they've sailed o'er
Is deeper known upon the strand to me.
"The middle sea contains no crimson dulse,
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view;
Along the shore my hand is on the pulse,
And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew."
There are good reasons to believe, from letters sent to Thoreau, that Emerson and Channing, perhaps other friends, expected he would gain some literary work in New York and remain there several years. Perhaps his impatient attitude towards nebulous chances in authorship proved one of the first disappointments to Emerson. Thoreau surely lost faith in future success in New York and returned to Concord in the autumn of 1843. He reiterates in his letters his constant outlook for schools for himself and Helen. None were found
