Page:A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.djvu/189

Rh like the statue of Memnon, it resounds only in the morning when the first rays of the sun fall on it. It was like the first lyre or shell heard on the sea-shore,—that vibrating cord high in the air over the shores of earth. So have all things their higher and their lower uses. I heard a fairer news than the journals ever print. It told of things worthy to hear, and worthy of the electric fluid to carrrycarry [sic] the news of, not of the price of cotton and flour, but it hinted at the price of the world itself and of things which are priceless, of absolute truth and beauty.

Still the drum rolled on, and stirred our blood to fresh extravagance that night. The clarion sound and clang of corselet and buckler were heard from many a hamlet of the soul, and many a knight was arming for the fight behind the encamped stars.—

Away! away! away! away! Ye have not kept your secret well, I will abide that other day, Those other lands ye tell. Has time no leisure left for these, The acts that ye rehearse?

Is not eternity a lease For better deeds than verse?