For a week I heard the circling groping clangor of some solitary goose in the foggy mornings, seeking its companion, and still peopling the woods with the sound of a larger life than they could sustain. In April the pigeons were seen again flying express in small flocks, and in due time I heard the martins twittering over my clearing, though it had not seemed that the township contained so many that it could afford me any, and I fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient race that dwelt in hollow trees ere white men came. In 10 almost all climes the tortoise and the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and birds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom, and winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and preserve the equilibrium of Nature. 5 15 Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness-to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whis-20 pering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and 25 sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic' features, the seacoast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its 30 decaying trees, the thundercloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture feeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens us and deriving health and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of the way, especially in the s night when the air was heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that 10 tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp-tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood. With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be 15 made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped. 20 Early in May, the oaks, hickories, maples, and other trees, just putting out amid the pine woods around the pond, imparted a brightness like sunshine to the landscape, especially in cloudy days, as if the sun were breaking through the mists and shining faintly on the hill-25 sides here and there. On the third or fourth of May I saw a loon in the pond, and during the first week of the month I heard the whip-poor-will, the brown thrasher, the veery, the wood pewee, the chewink, and other birds. I had heard the wood thrush long before. The phoebe 30 had already come once more and looked in at my door and window, to see if my house was cavern-like enough for her, sustaining herself on humming wings with clinched talons, as if she held by the air, while she surveyed the premises. The sulphur-like pollen of the pitch pine soon covered the pond and the stones and rotten wood along the shore, so that you could have collected a barrelful. This is the "sulphur showers" we hear of. Even in Calidas' drama of Sakuntala we 5 read of "rills dyed yellow with the golden dust of the lotus." And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass. LXX. HANNAH BINDING SHOES. BY LUCY LARCOM.' POOR lone Hannah, Sitting at the window, binding shoes: Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse. Hannah's at the window, binding shoes. To her whisper, "Is there from the fishers any news?" On an endless voyage gone! Night and morning, Hannah's at the window, binding shoes. 20 Fair young Hannah, Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly wooes; For a willing heart and hand he sues. And the waves are laughing so! For her wedding Hannah leaves her window and her shoes. May is passing; 'Mid the apple boughs a pigeon cooes; Hannah shudders, For the mild southwester mischief brews. Round the rocks of Marblehead, Outward bound, a schooner sped: Silent, lonesome, Hannah's at the window, binding shoes. "Tis November: Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews; From Newfoundland Not a sail returning will she lose, Whispering hoarsely, "Fishermen, Old with watching, Hannah's at the window, binding shoes. Twenty winters Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views Twenty seasons! Never one has brought her any news. Chase the white sails o'er the sea: Hannah's at the window, binding shoes. 5 10 15 20 25 30 LXXI. THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS. BY CHARLES SUMNER.' O! yet a nobler task awaits thy hand! For what can War but endless War still breed? MILTON, SONNET TO FAIRFAX. THE true greatness of a nation cannot be in triumphs. of the intellect alone. Literature and art may widen the sphere of its influence; they may adorn it; but they are in their nature but accessaries. The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened, and decorated by the intellect of man. The truest to-10 kens of this grandeur in a State are the diffusion of the greatest happiness among the greatest number, and that passionless, Godlike Justice which controls the relations of the State to other States, and to all the people who are committed to its charge. But war crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, all that is Godlike in man. "It is," says the eloquent Robert Hall,' "the temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." True, it cannot be disguised that there are passages in its dreary annals cheered by deeds 20 of generosity and sacrifice; but the virtues which shed their charm over its horrors are all borrowed of peace; they are emanations of the spirit of love, which is so strong in the heart of man that it survives the rudest assaults. The flowers of gentleness, of kindliness, of 25 fidelity, of humanity, which flourish in unregarded luxuriance in the rich meadows of peace, receive unwonted 15 |