Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/22

2 the boundaries of Plymouth and chose his home here. No wonder Daniel Webster, New England's most vivid great man, wandering southward over the hills in search of a country home two centuries later, fixed upon the spot just below Black Mount, looking down upon Green Harbor marshes and the sea, and chose this for his abiding-place.

The statesman and orator, whose words still ring across the years to us, with the trumpet sounding in them even from the printed page, may well have breathed inspiration for them from the winds that come from seaward across the aromatic marshes, There is cool truthfulness in these winds, and understanding of the depths, and the salty, wild flavor of the untamed marsh gives them a tang of primal vitality. Breasting them at mid-day from under the wilt of summer heat you seem to drink air rather than to breathe it, and find intoxication in the draught. I never heard a robin sing in mid-flight, soaring upward like a skylark, till I came to this bit of sweet New England country. The east wind drifted in to him as he sat on a treetop caroling, and he spread his