USA > New Hampshire > To Monadnock; the records of a mountain in New Hampshire through three centuries > Part 5
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For knees so stiff, for masts so limber; The stock of which new earths are made, One day to be our western trade, Fit for the stanchions of a world Which through the seas of space is hurled.
While we enjoy a lingering ray, Ye still o'ertop the western day, Reposing yonder on God's croft Like solid stacks of hay ; So bold a line as ne'er was writ On any page by human wit; The forest glows as if An enemy's camp-fires shone Along the horizon, Or the day's funeral pyre Were lighted there;
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THOREAU'S HORIZON MOUNTAINS, 1842
Edged with silver and with gold, The clouds hang o'er in damask fold, And with such depth of amber light The west is dight, Where still a few rays slant, That even Heaven seems extravagant. Watatic Hill Lies on the horizon's sill
Like a child's toy left overnight,
And other duds to left and right. On the earth's edge, mountains and trees Stand as they were on air graven,
Or as the vessels in a haven Await the morning breeze. I fancy even
Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven; And yonder still, in spite of history's page, Linger the golden and the silver age; Upon the laboring gale The news of future centuries is brought, And of new dynasties of thought, From your remotest vale.
But special I remember thee, Wachusett, who like me Standest alone without society. Thy far blue eye, A remnant of the sky, Seen through the clearing or the gorge, Or from the windows of the forge, Doth leaven all it passes by. Nothing is true
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TO MONADNOCK
But stands 'tween me and you, Thou western pioneer, Who know'st not shame nor fear, By venturous spirit driven Under the eaves of heaven ; And canst expand thee there, And breathe enough of air? Even beyond the West Thou migratest, Into unclouded tracts, Without a pilgrim's axe, . Cleaving thy road on high With thy well-tempered brow, And mak'st thyself a clearing in the sky.
Upholding heaven, holding down earth, Thy pastime from thy birth; Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other, May I approve myself thy worthy brother!
At length, like Rasselas and other inhabitants of happy val- leys, we resolved to scale the blue wall which bounded the western horizon, though not without misgivings that there- after no visible fairyland would exist for us. . .
We have since made many similar excursions to the prin- cipal mountains of New England and New York, and even far in the wilderness, and have passed a night on the summit of many of them. And now, when we look again westward from our native hills, Wachusett and Monadnock have retreated once more among the blue and fabulous mountains in the hori- zon, though our eyes rest on the very rocks on both of them where we have pitched our tent for a night, and boiled our hasty-pudding amid the clouds.
90
A CAMP ON WACHUSETT, 1842
By Henry David Thoreau, from A Walk to Wachusett dated July 19, 1842. Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Company.
As we stood on the stone tower while the sun was setting, we saw the shades of night creep gradually over the valleys of the east; and the inhabitants went into their houses and shut their doors, while the moon silently rose up and took possession of that part. And then the same scene was repeated on the west side, as far as the Connecticut and the Green Mountains, and the sun's rays fell on us two alone, of all New England men.
It was the night but one before the full of the moon, so bright that we could see to read distinctly by moonlight, and in the evening strolled over the summit without danger. There was, by chance, a fire blazing on Monadnock that night, which lighted up the whole western horizon, and, by making us aware of a community of mountains, made our position seem less solitary. But at length the wind drove us to the shelter of our tent, and we closed its door for the night and fell asleep. . .
The morning twilight began as soon as the moon had set and we arose and kindled our fire, whose blaze might have been seen for thirty miles around. As the daylight increased, it was remarkable how rapidly the wind went down. There was no dew on the summit, but coldness supplied its place. When the dawn had reached its prime, we enjoyed the view of a dis- tinct horizon line, and could fancy ourselves at sea, and the distant hills the waves in the horizon, as seen from the deck of a vessel. The cherry-birds flitted around us, the nuthatch and flicker were heard among the bushes, the titmouse perched within a few feet, and the song of the wood thrush again rang
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TO MONADNOCK
along the ridge. At length we saw the sun rise up out of the sea and shine on Massachusetts; and from this moment the atmosphere grew more and more transparent till the time of our departure, and we began to realize the extent of the view, and how the earth in some degree answered to the heavens in breadth, the white villages to the constellations in the sky. .. Wachusett is, in fact, the observatory of the State. There lay Massachusetts, spread out before us in its length and breadth, like a map. There was the level horizon which told of the sea on the east and south, the well-known hills of New Hamp- shire on the north, and the misty summits of the Hoosac and Green Mountains, first made visible to us the evening before, blue and unsubstantial, like some bank of clouds which the morning wind would dissipate, on the northwest and west. These last distant ranges, on which the eye rests unwearied, commence with an abrupt boulder in the north, beyond the Connecticut, and travel southward, with three or four peaks dimly seen. But Monadnock, rearing its masculine front in the northwest, is the grandest feature. As we beheld it, we knew that it was the height of land between the two rivers, 'on this side the valley of the Merrimack, on that of the Con- necticut, fluctuating with their blue seas of air,-these rival vales, already teeming with Yankee men along their respective streams, born to what destiny who shall tell? Watatic and the neighboring hills, in this State and in New Hampshire, are a continuation of the same elevated range on which we were standing. But that New Hampshire bluff-that promontory of a State-lowering day and night on this our State of Massachusetts, will longest haunt our dreams. . .
92
THE GRAND MONADNOCK [1846]
By Albert Perry, a native of Rindge, N. H. (1820-62). Text taken from The Poets of New Hampshire, being specimen poems of three hundred poets of the Granite State, compiled by Bela Chapin and published 1883.
Summer was out in all her greenery, And fragrant zephyrs o'er the landscape played, As through New Hampshire's rugged scenery I rambled. Trees were towering undecayed That cast on other centuries their shade. Tall mountains stood around with solemn mien, The guardians of many a flowery glade That slept in beauty and in joy between, Like maiden innocence, too bashful to be seen.
There is a magic in those old gray rocks Towering in mountain majesty on high. For ages they have battled with the shocks Of wracking whirlwinds that have wandered by. Changes that have deranged mortality Are nought to them. A brotherhood sublime, They hold a quiet converse with the sky, And stand as when our world was in its prime, Unharmed as yet by all the ravages of time.
And thou, Parnassus of my native clime, What though we scarcely yet have seen thy name Among the annals of hesperian rhyme? What if no oracle enhance thy fame, No fuming deity or prescient dame Erect a domicile and tripod near ? Thou Grand Monadnock, grandeur is the same, Whether it shade the Delphian hemisphere Or tower without a sibyl or a poet here.
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TO MONADNOCK
I stood upon thy solitary height When erst romantic boyhood climbed the steep, And there outvigiled all the stars of night Till morning gleamed along the watery deep And woke a drowsy continent from sleep. I saw remotest Orient unfold His portals, and a world of splendor leap From the abyss where far Atlantic rolled, Mingling its billows with a firmament of gold.
Time rolls along with an oblivious tide And soon will drown the voice of praise or blame. The tallest monuments of human pride Crumble away like ant hills, both the same. How brief the echo of a sounding name, The envy and the glory of mankind! And who shall heed the after-trump of fame, That fluctuates a season on the wind, Stirring the empty dust that he has left behind?
Farewell, thou rude but venerable form, I go my way, perchance return no more. I leave thee here to battle with the storm And the inconstant winds that round thee roar. . . Farewell! contentment is my only store. Along the humbler valley let me tread, Unenvied live, and sleep with the forgotten dead.
94
.
MONADNOC [1847]
In one of Emerson's verse books, 1845, is a half-erased pen- cilled improvisation of a few lines in the early part of this poem, written on the dark ledges above the spruce forest "3 May, 4 hours, 10 minutes A. M." This poem was first pub- lished in 1847. The present text combines Emerson's last revision of the poem (edition of 1876) with an earlier version (Household Edition), published after his death. By courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Company.
Thousand minstrels woke within me, 'Our music's in the hills ;'-
Gayest pictures rose to win me, Leopard-colored rills.
'Up !- If thou knew'st who calls
To twilight parks of beech and pine,
High over the river intervals, Above the ploughman's highest line,
Over the owner's farthest walls! Up! where the airy citadel O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell ! Let not unto the stones the Day Her lily and rose, her sea and land display ; Read the celestial sign ! Lo! the south answers to the north; Bookworm, break this sloth urbane; A greater spirit bids thee forth Than the gray dreams which thee detain.
Mark how the climbing Oreads Beckon thee to their arcades ;
Youth, for a moment free as they, Teach thy feet to feel the ground, Ere yet arrives the wintry day
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TO MONADNOCK
When Time thy feet has bound. Take the bounty of thy birth, Taste the lordship of the earth.'
I heard, and I obeyed,- Assured that he who made the claim, Well known, but loving not a name, Was not to be gainsaid.
Ere yet the summoning voice was still, I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed Like ample banner flung abroad To all the dwellers in the plains Round about, a hundred miles, With salutation to the sea and to the bordering isles.
In his own loom's garment dressed, By his proper bounty blessed, Fast abides this constant giver, Pouring many a cheerful river ; To far eyes, an aerial isle Unploughed, which finer spirits pile,
Which morn and crimson evening paint
For bard, for lover and for saint; The people's pride, the country's core, Inspirer, prophet evermore ; Pillar which God aloft had set So that men might it not forget ; It should be their life's ornament, And mix itself with each event; Gauge and calendar and dial, Weatherglass and chemic phial, Garden of berries, perch of birds,
96
RALPH WALDO EMERSON [1847]
Pasture of pool-haunting herds, Graced by each change of sum untold, Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.
The Titan heeds his sky-affairs, Rich rents and wide alliance shares ; Mysteries of color daily laid By morn and eve in light and shade ; And sweet varieties of chance, And the mystic season's dance ; And thief-like step of liberal hours Thawing snow-drift into flowers. O, wondrous craft of plant and stone By eldest science wrought and shown!
'Happy,' I said, 'whose home is here ! Fair fortunes to the mountaineer ! Boon Nature to his poorest shed Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.' Intent, I searched the region round, And in low hut the dweller found :- Woe is me for my hope's downfall! Is yonder squalid peasant all That this proud nursery could breed For God's viceregency and stead ? Time out of mind, this forge of ores ; Quarry of spars in mountain pores ; Old cradle, hunting-ground and bier Of wolf and otter, bear and deer; Well-built abode of many a race ; Tower of observance searching space; Factory of river and of rain; Link in the alps' globe-girding chain; By million changes skilled to tell
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TO MONADNOCK
What in the Eternal standeth well, And what obedient Nature can ;- Is this colossal talisman Kindly to plant, and blood, and kind, But speechless to the master's mind ? I thought to find the patriots In whom the stock of freedom roots: To myself I oft recount
Tales of many a famous mount,- Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells; Bards, Roys, Scanderbegs and Tells. Here Nature shall condense her powers, Her music and her meteors, And lifting man to the blue deep Where stars their perfect courses keep, Like wise preceptor, lure his eye To sound the science of the sky, And carry learning to its height Of untried power and sane delight: The Indian cheer, the frosty skies, Rear purer wits, inventive eyes,- Eyes that frame cities where none be,
And hands that stablish what these see; And by the moral of his place Hint summits of heroic grace ; Man in these crags a fastness find To fight pollution of the mind ; In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong, Adhere like this foundation strong, The insanity of towns to stem With simpleness for stratagem. But if the brave old mould is broke, And end in churls the mountain folk,
98
RALPH WALDO EMERSON [1847]
In tavern cheer and tavern joke, Sink, O mountain, in the swamp! Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lamp! Perish like leaves, the highland breed : No sire survive, no son succeed !
Soft! let not the offended muse Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse. Many hamlets sought I then, Many farms of mountain men. Rallying round a parish steeple Nestle warm the highland people, Coarse and boisterous, yet mild, Strong as giant, slow as child. Sweat and season are their arts, Their talismans are ploughs and carts ; And well the youngest can command Honey from the frozen land ; With cloverheads the swamp adorn, Change the running sand to corn; For wolf and fox, bring lowing herds, And for cold mosses, cream and curds : Weave wood to canisters and mats; Drain sweet maple juice in vats. No bird is safe that cuts the air From their rifle or their snare; No fish, in river or in lake, But their long hands it thence will take; Whilst the country's flinty face, Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays, To fill the hollows, sink the hills, Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills, And fit the bleak and howling waste
99
TO MONADNOCK
For homes of virtue, sense and taste. The World-soul knows his own affair, Forelooking, when he would prepare For the next ages, men of mould Well embodied, well ensouled, He cools the present's fiery glow, Sets the life-pulse strong but slow : Bitter winds and fasts austere His quarantines and grottoes, where He slowly cures decrepit flesh, And brings it infantile and fresh. Toil and tempest are the toys
And games to breathe his stalwart boys:
They bide their time, and well can prove, If need were, their line from Jove ; Of the same stuff, and so allayed, As that whereof the sun is made, And of the fibre, quick and strong, Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song.
Now in sordid weeds they sleep, In dulness now their secret keep; Yet, will you learn our ancient speech, These the masters who can teach. Fourscore or a hundred words All their vocal muse affords ; But they turn them in a fashion Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion. I can spare the college bell, And the learned lecture, well ; Spare the clergy and libraries, Institutes and dictionaries, For what hardy Saxon root
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RALPH WALDO EMERSON [1847]
Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot. Rude poets of the tavern hearth, Squandering your unquoted mirth, Which keeps the ground and never soars, While Jake retorts and Reuben roars; Scoff of yeoman strong and stark, Goes like bullet to its mark ; While the solid curse and jeer Never baulk the waiting ear.
On the summit as I stood, O'er the floor of plain and flood Seemed to me, the towering hill Was not altogether still, But a quiet sense conveyed ; If I err not, thus it said :-
'Many feet in summer seek, Oft, my far-appearing peak ; In the dreaded winter time, None save dappling shadows climb, Under clouds, my lonely head Old as the sun, old almost as the shade; And comest thou To see strange forests and new snow, And tread uplifted land ? And leavest thou thy lowland race, Here amid clouds to stand ? And wouldst be my companion Where I gaze, and still shall gaze, Through tempering nights and flashing days, When forests fall, and man is gone, Over tribes and over times, At the burning Lyre,
101
TO MONADNOCK
Nearing me, With its stars of northern fire, In many a thousand years?
'Gentle pilgrim, if thou know The gamut old of Pan,
And how the hills began, The frank blessings of the hill Fall on thee, as fall they will.
'Let him heed who can and will; Enchantment fixed me here
To stand the hurts of time, until In mightier chant I disappear. If thou trowest How the chemic eddies play,
Pole to pole, and what they say ;
And that these gray crags
Not on crags are hung, But beads are of a rosary
On prayer and music strung ;
And, credulous, through the granite seeming,
Seest the smile of Reason beaming ;-
Can thy style-discerning eye The hidden-working Builder spy,
Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din,
With hammer soft as snowflake's flight ;- Knowest thou this ? O pilgrim, wandering not amiss!
Already my rocks lie light, And soon my cone will spin.
'For the world was built in order, And the atoms march in tune;
102
RALPH WALDO EMERSON [1847]
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, The sun obeys them, and the moon. Orb and atom forth they prance, When they hear from far the rune; None so backward in the troop, When the music and the dance Reach his place and circumstance, But knows the sun-creating sound, And, though a pyramid, will bound.
'Monadnoc is a mountain strong, Tall and good my kind among; But well I know, no mountain can, Zion or Meru, measure with man. For it is on zodiacs writ, Adamant is soft to wit: And when the greater comes again With my secret in his brain, I shall pass, as glides my shadow Daily over hill and meadow.
'Through all time, in light, in gloom, Well I hear the approaching feet On the flinty pathway beat Of him that cometh, and shall come; Of him who shall as lightly bear My daily load of woods and streams, As doth this round sky-cleaving boat Which never strains its rocky beams; Whose timbers, as they silent float, Alps and Caucasus uprear, And the long Alleghanies here, And all town-sprinkled lands that be,
103
TO MONADNOCK
Sailing through stars with all their history.
'Every morn I lift my head, See New England underspread, South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound, From Katskill east to the sea-bound.
Anchored fast for many an age,
I await the bard and sage, Who, in large thoughts, like a fair pearl-seed, Shall string Monadnoc like a bead. Comes that cheerful troubadour,
This mound shall throb his face before,
As when, with inward fires and pain,
It rose a bubble from the plain. When he cometh, I shall shed,
From this wellspring in my head, .
Fountain-drop of spicier worth
Than all vintage of the earth.
There's fruit upon my barren soil
Costlier far than wine or oil. There's a berry blue and gold,- Autumn-ripe, its juices hold
Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart,
Asia's rancor, Athens' art,
Slowsure Britain's secular might,
And the German's inward sight.
I will give my son to eat Best of Pan's immortal meat,
Bread to eat, and juice to drain, So the coinage of his brain
Shall not be forms of stars, but stars, Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars. He comes, but not of that race bred
104
RALPH WALDO EMERSON [1847]
Who daily climb my specular head. Oft as morning wreathes my scarf, Fled the last plumule of the Dark, Pants up hither the spruce clerk From South Cove and City Wharf. I take him up my rugged sides, Half-repentant, scant of breath,- Bead-eyes my granite chaos show, And my midsummer snow : Open the daunting map beneath,- All his county, sea and land, Dwarfed to measure of his hand; His day's ride is a furlong space, His city-tops a glimmering haze. I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding ;
"See there the grim gray rounding
Of the bullet of the earth Whereon ye sail,
Tumbling steep
In the uncontinented deep."
He looks on that, and he turns pale.
'Tis even so, this treacherous kite, Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,
Thoughtless of its anxious freight,
Plunges eyeless on forever ; And he, poor parasite,
Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,-
Who is the captain he knows not, Port or pilot trows not,- Risk or ruin he must share. I scowl on him with my cloud, With my north wind chill his blood; I lame him, clattering down the rocks;
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TO MONADNOCK
And to live he is in fear. Then, at last, I let him down Once more into his dapper town, To chatter, frightened, to his clan And forget me if he can.'
As in the old poetic fame The gods are blind and lame, And the simular despite Betrays the more abounding might, So call not waste that barren cone
Above the floral zone, Where forests starve: It is pure use ;- What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse ?
Ages are thy days, Thou grand affirmer of the present tense, And type of permanence ! Firm ensign of the fatal Being,
Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, That will not bide the seeing !
Hither we bring Our insect miseries to thy rocks ; And the whole flight, with folded wing, Vanish, and end their murmuring,- Vanish beside these dedicated blocks, Which who can tell what mason laid ? Spoils of a front none need restore, Replacing frieze and architrave ;- Where flowers each stone rosette and metope brave; Still is the haughty pile erect Of the old building Intellect.
106
RALPH WALDO EMERSON [1847]
Complement of human kind, Holding us at vantage still, Our sumptuous indigence, O barren mound, thy plenties fill ! We fool and prate ; Thou art silent and sedate.
To myriad kinds and times one sense
The constant mountain doth dispense ; Shedding on all its snows and leaves, One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. Thou seest, O watchman tall, Our towns and races grow and fall, And imagest the stable good,
In shifting form, the formless mind,
For which we all our lifetime grope; And though the substance us elude,
We in thee the shadow find.
Thou, in our astronomy
An opaker star, Seen haply from afar,
Above the horizon's hoop,
A moment, by the railway troop,
As o'er some bolder height they speed,-
By circumspect ambition,
By errant gain,
By feasters and the frivolous,- Recallest us, And makest sane.
Mute orator ! well skilled to plead,
And send conviction without phrase, Thou dost succor and remede The shortness of our days,
And promise, on thy Founder's truth, Long morrow to this mortal youth.
107
THE CHESHIRE RAILROAD TO TROY, 1847
Fitchburg Sentinel, leading editorial, December 31, 1847.
This road was opened to Troy on Monday last. We passed over the road on the first up train in company with several gentlemen of this town and the towns along the road, and had a very pleasant trip. The whole superstructure and finish of the road is probably equal to any in New England, and the curvatures are few and well constructed for great speed, with safety. We noticed one place where the track was straight for five or six miles. The engines on the road were manufactured by Messrs. Hinkley & Drury, of Boston, and are powerful ma- chines. The cars, manufactured by Messrs. Davenport & Bridges, are elegantly finished and very commodious. The Directors have secured the services of an experienced and gen- tlemanly conductor, Mr. Gale, and also of experienced en- gineers. We congratulate the government of the Company on their success in making arrangements in every respect to satisfy the reasonable expectations and desires of the public.
From WACHUSETT [1847]
To the dull north, a skeleton so dim, Is gray Monadnoc's head. . .
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.
108
MONADNOC [about 1850]
From a newspaper clipping in an old scrapbook. The author, Elsie Kibling Miller, was the wife of Alfred Miller, M.D., resident physician in Ashburnham, Mass., 1845-62 or 63. From her early home in Lane Village, Ashburnham, is a clear view up to Monadnock. Now the old Kibling place is one of many New England cellar holes, grown up to poplars and white birches, lilacs and a tangle of woodbine.
Monadnoc! proud in thy sublimity!
On thee I gaze, as I have ever gazed, Till my heart swells with rapture and delight.
.Dearer to me thou art . Than all the wealth of Ind and ocean's pearls In one vast store collected. Thee I love, And ever shall while memory endures. . .
Thou art all grandeur! To me more sacred Than any spot on earth save one. Ever May thy dear name in lofty strains be sung As one of nature's wonders. Loftier His praises be, who did all things create.
109
APPLEDORE [1851]
These lines, by James Russell Lowell, were first published in Graham's Magazine for April, 1851, although the present text, by courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Company, is taken from the Cambridge Edition of Lowell's Poems. "Appledore," wrote Lowell in 1854, "is one of the Isles of Shoals, off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, discovered by the great Captain Smith and once named after him. A cairn on the apex of Appledore is said to be of his building."
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