and Leander" tells better for his character than the anecdotes which survive.
I fain would stretch me by the highway-side,
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,
That mingled soul and body with the tide
I too might through the pores of Nature flow,[1]
Might help to forward the new spring along,
If it were mine to choose my toil or day,
Scouring the roads with yonder sluice-way throng,
And so work out my tax on Her highway.
Yet let us thank the purblind race
Who still have thought it good
With lasting stone to mark the place
Where braver men have stood.
In Concord, town of quiet name
And quiet fame as well,...
I've seen ye, sisters, on the mountain-side,
When your green mantles fluttered in the wind;
I Ve seen your footprints on the lake's smooth shore,
Lesser than man's, a more ethereal trace;
I have heard of ye as some far-famed race,
Daughters of gods, whom I should one day meet,
Or mothers, I might say, of all our race.
I reverence your natures, so like mine
Yet strangely different, like but still unlike.
- ↑ [Excursions, and Poems, p. 409. See also p. 71.]
