Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/23

Rh These eyes, fresh-opened, spied the far-off Sea, That like a silent godfather did stand, Nor uttered one explaining word to me, While introducing straight godmother Land. And yonder still stretches that silent Main, With many glancing ships besprinkled o'er: And earnest still I gaze and gaze again Upon the selfsame waves and friendly shore. Infinite work my hands find there to do, Gathering the relicts which the waves upcast: Each storm doth scour the sea for something new,— And every time the strangest is the last. My neighbors sometimes come with lumbering carts, As if they wished my pleasant toil to share; But straight they go again to distant marts,— For only weeds and ballast are their care.

"Only weeds and ballast?" that is exactly what Thoreau's neighbors would have said he was gathering, for the most of his days; yet now he is seen to have collected something more durable and precious than they with their implements and market-carts. If they viewed him with a kind of scorn and pity, it must be said that he returned the affront; only time seems to have sided with the poet in the controversy that he maintained against his busy age.