Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/549

1837-47] after having served sincere and stern uses. He has the pronunciation of a poet though he stutters. He certainly speaks the English tongue with a right manly accent. To be sure his poems have the musty odor of a confessional.

How little curious is man,

Who hath not searched his mystery a span,

But dreams of mines of treasure

Which he neglects to measure,

For threescore years and ten

Walks to and fro amid his fellow men

O'er this small tract of continental land,

His fancy bearing no divining wand.

Our uninquiring corpses lie more low

Than our life's curiosity doth go;

Our most ambitious steps climb not so high

As in their hourly sport the sparrows fly.

Yonder cloud's blown farther in a day

Than our most vagrant feet may ever stray.

Surely, O Lord, he hath not greatly erred

Who hath so little from his birthplace stirred.

He wanders through this low and shallow world,

Scarcely his bolder thoughts and hopes unfurled,

Through this low wallèd world, which his huge sin

Hath hardly room to rest and harbor in.

Bearing his head just o'er some fallow ground,

Some cowslip'd meadows where the bitterns sound,

He wanders round until his end draws nigh,