Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/195

Rh In addition to the original comments, full of tender feeling, Thoreau read quotations from elegies and odes, showing a wide and careful selection. Among the authors cited were Schiller, Wordsworth and Tennyson, with a translation of his own from Tacitus. He also quoted "The Soul's Errand," the poem attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh when awaiting threatened execution; there was especial significance in the last stanza, for Thoreau, with others, had sought permission from the town officers to toll the bell on the day of Brown's death, but the faint-hearted magnates had demurred. Hence, Thoreau italicized with voice the lines:

Thoreau's address in behalf of Brown, after the arrest, was delivered in Concord on Sunday evening, October 30th, and was repeated the following week in Boston, Worcester, and elsewhere. Some friends deprecated this boldness and dreaded lest Thoreau's arraignment of the government might bring him arrest. Little recked he the result,—his duty was to speak and, if possible, awaken public conscience and national courage. His