Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/225

Rh Our foaming ale we drank from hunters' pans,

Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave

Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread;

All ate like abbots, and, if any missed

Their wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss

With hunters' appetite and peals of mirth.

And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodore,

Crusoe, Crusader, Pius Æneas, said aloud,

Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating

Food indigestible":—then murmured some,

Others applauded him who spoke the truth.

Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought

Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday

'Mid all the hints and glories of the home.

For who can tell what sudden privacies

Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry

Of scholars furloughed from their tasks and let

Into this Oreads' fended Paradise,

As chapels in the city's thoroughfares,

Whither gaunt Labor slips to wipe his brow

And meditate a moment on Heaven's rest.

Judge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke

To each apart, lifting her lovely shows

To spiritual lessons pointed home,

And as through dreams in watches of the night,

So through all creatures in their form and ways

Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant,

Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense