Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/223

Rh Our heroes tried their rifles at a mark,

Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five;

Sometimes their wits at sally and retort,

With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle;

Or parties scaled the near acclivities

Competing seekers of a rumored lake,

Whose unauthenticated waves we named

Lake Probability,—our carbuncle,

Long sought, not found.

Two Doctors in the camp

Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain,

Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew,

Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow and moth;

Insatiate skill in water or in air

Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss;

The while, one leaden pot of alcohol

Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds.

Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants,

Orchis and gentian, fern and long whip-scirpus,

Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride,

Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge and moss,

Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls.

Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed,

The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker

Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp.

As water poured through hollows of the hills

To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets,