Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/548

458 And in whose fenny labyrinths

The bittern booms and curlew peeps,

The heron wades and boding rain-crow clucks;

Low-anchored cloud,

Newfoundland air,

Fountain-head and source of rivers,

Ocean branch that flowest to the sun,

Diluvian spirit, or Deucalion shroud,

Dew-cloth, dream drapery,

And napkin spread by fays,

Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,

Sea-fowl that with the east wind

Seek'st the shore, groping thy way inland,

By whichever name I please to call thee,

Bear only perfumes and the scent

Of healing herbs to just men's fields.

I am amused with the manner in which Quarles and his contemporary poets speak of Nature,—with a sort of gallantry, as a knight of his lady,—not as lovers, but as having a thorough respect for her and some title to her acquaintance. They speak manfully, and their lips are not closed by affection.

Nature seems to have held her court then, and all authors were her gentlemen and esquires and had ready an abundance of courtly expressions.

Quarles is never weak or shallow, though coarse and untasteful. He presses able-bodied and strong-backed words into his service, which have a certain rustic fragrance and force, as if now first devoted to literature