Boucherville
(Que.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
Believe the thrushes sung,
And that the flower-bells rung,
That herbs exhaled their scent,
And beasts knew what was meant,
The trees a welcome waved,
And lakes their margins laved,
When thy free mind
To my retreat did wind.
It was a summer eve,
The air did gently heave
While yet a low-hung cloud
Thy eastern skies did shroud;
The lightning's silent gleam,
Startling my drowsy dream,
Seemed like the flash
Under thy dark eyelash.
From yonder comes the sun,
But soon his course is run,
Rising to trivial day
Along his dusty way;
But thy noontide completes
Only auroral heats,
Nor ever sets,
To hasten vain regrets.
Direct thy pensive eye
Into the western sky;
And when the evening star
Does glimmer from afar
Upon the mountain line,
Accept it for a sign
That I am near,
And thinking of thee here.
I'll be thy Mercury,
Thou Cytherea to me,
Distinguished by thy face
The earth shall learn my place;
As near beneath thy light
Will I outwear the night,
With mingled ray
Leading the westward way.
Still will I strive to be
As if thou wert with me;
Whatever path I take,
It shall be for thy sake,
Of gentle slope and wide,
As thou wert by my side,
Without a root
To trip thy gentle foot.
I'll walk with gentle pace,
And choose the smoothest place,
And careful dip the oar,
And shun the winding shore,
And gently steer my boat
Where water-lilies float,
And cardinal-flowers
Stand in their sylvan bowers.
TO MY BROTHER
Brother, where dost thou dwell?
What sun shines for thee now?
Dost thou indeed fare well,
As we wished thee here below?
What season didst thou find?
'Twas winter here.
Are not the Fates more kind
Than they appear?
Is thy brow clear again
As in thy youthful years?
And was that ugly pain
The summit of thy fears?
Yet thou wast cheery still;
They could not quench thy fire;
Thou didst abide their will,
And then retire.
Where chiefly shall I look
To feel thy presence near?
Along the neighboring brook
May I thy voice still hear?
Dost thou still haunt the brink
Of yonder river's tide?
And may I ever think
That thou art by my side?
What bird wilt thou employ
To bring me word of thee?
For it would give them joy--
'T would give them liberty--
To serve their former lord
With wing and minstrelsy.
A sadder strain mixed with their song,
They've slowlier built their nests;
Since thou art gone
Their lively labor rests.
Where is the finch, the thrush,
I used to hear?
Ah, they could well abide
The dying year.
Now they no more return,
I hear them not;
They have remained to mourn,
Or else forgot.
GREECE[11]
When life contracts into a vulgar span,
And human nature tires to be a man,
I thank the gods for Greece,
That permanent realm of peace.
For as the rising moon far in the night
Checkers the shade with her forerunning light,
So in my darkest hour my senses seem
To catch from her Acropolis a gleam.
Greece, who am I that should remember thee,
Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylae?
Is my life vulgar, my fate mean,
Which on such golden memories can lean?
THE FUNERAL BELL
One more is gone
Out of the busy throng
That tread these paths;
The church-bell tolls,
Its sad knell rolls
To many hearths.
Flower-bells toll not,
Their echoes roll not
Upon my ear;
There still, perchance,
That gentle spirit haunts
A fragrant bier.
Low lies the pall,
Lowly the mourners all
Their passage grope;
No sable hue
Mars the serene blue
Of heaven's cope.
In distant dell
Faint sounds the funeral bell;
A heavenly chime;
Some poet there
Weaves the light-burthened air
Into sweet rhyme.
THE MOON
Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed.
RALEIGH.
The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.
She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless;
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.
And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She's mistress of the night.
THE FALL OF THE LEAF[12]
Thank God who seasons thus the year,
And sometimes kindly slants his rays;
For in his winter he's most near
And plainest seen upon the shortest days.
Who gently tempers now his heats.
And then his harsher cold, lest we
Should surfeit on the summer's sweets,
Or pine upon the winter's crudity.
A sober mind will walk alone,
Apart from nature, if need be,
And only its own seasons own:
For nature leaving its humanity.
Sometimes a late autumnal thought
Has crossed my mind in green July,
And to its early freshness brought
Late ripened fruits, and an autumnal sky.
The evening of the year draws on,
The fields a later aspect wear;
Since Summer's garishness is gone,
Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.
Behold! the shadows of the trees
Now circle wider 'bout their stem,
Like sentries that by slow degrees
Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.
And as the year doth decline,
The sun allows a scantier light;
Behind each needle of the pine
There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.
I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay
Around, beneath me, and on high;
It rocks the night, it soothes the day,
And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.
But most he chirps beneath the sod,
When he has made his winter bed;
His creak grown fainter but more broad,
A film of autumn o'er the summer spread.
Small birds, in fleets migrating by,
Now beat across some meadow's bay,
And as they tack and veer on high,
With faint and hurried click beguile the way.
Far in the woods, these golden days,
Some leaf obeys its Maker's call;
And through their hollow aisles it plays
With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.
Gently withdrawing from its stem,
It lightly lays itself along
Where the same hand hath pillowed them,
Resigned to sleep upon the old year's throng.
The loneliest birch is brown and sere,
The farthest pool is strewn with leaves,
Which float upon their watery bier,
Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.
The jay screams through the chestnut wood;
The crisped and yellow leaves around
Are hue and texture of my mood,
And these rough burs my heirlooms on the ground.
The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,
They are no wealthier than I;
But with as brave a core within
They rear their boughs to the October sky.
Poor knights they are which bravely wait
The charge of Winter's cavalry,
Keeping a simple Roman state,
Discumbered of their Persian luxury.
THE THAW
I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears,
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed. [13]
Fain would I stretch me by the highway-side
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow;
That mingled, soul and body, with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.
A WINTER SCENE[14]
The rabbit leaps,
The mouse out-creeps,
The flag out-peeps
Beside the brook;
The ferret weeps,
The marmot sleeps,
The owlet keeps
In his snug nook.
The apples thaw,
The ravens caw,
The squirrels gnaw
The frozen fruit.
To their retreat
I track the feet
Of mice that eat
The apple's root.
The snow-dust falls,
The otter crawls,
The partridge calls,
Far in the wood.
The traveler dreams,
The tree-ice gleams,
The blue jay screams
In angry mood.
The willows droop,
The alders stoop,
The pheasants group
Beneath the snow.
The catkins green
Cast o'er the scene
A summer's sheen,
A genial glow.
TO A STRAY FOWL
Poor bird! destined to lead thy life
Far in the adventurous west,
And here to be debarred to-night
From thy accustomed nest;
Must thou fall back upon old instinct now,
Well-nigh extinct under man's fickle care?
Did heaven bestow its quenchless inner light,
So long ago, for thy small want to-night?
Why stand'st upon thy toes to crow so late?
The moon is deaf to thy low feathered fate;
Or dost thou think so to possess the night,
And people the drear dark with thy brave sprite?
And now with anxious eye thou look'st about,
While the relentless shade draws on its veil,
For some sure shelter from approaching dews,
And the insidious steps of nightly foes.
I fear imprisonment has dulled thy wit,
Or ingrained servitude extinguished it.
But no; dim memory of the days of yore,
By Brahmapootra and the Jumna's shore,
Where thy proud race flew swiftly o'er the heath,
And sought its food the jungle's shade beneath,
Has taught thy wings to seek yon friendly trees,
As erst by Indus' banks and far Ganges.
POVERTY
A FRAGMENT
If I am poor,
It is that I am proud;
If God has made me naked and a boor,
He did not think it fit his work to shroud.
The poor man comes direct from heaven to earth,
As stars drop down the sky, and tropic beams;
The rich receives in our gross air his birth,
As from low suns are slanted golden gleams.
Yon sun is naked, bare of satellite,
Unless our earth and moon that office hold;
Though his perpetual day feareth no night,
And his perennial summer dreads no cold.
Mankind may delve, but cannot my wealth spend;
If I no partial wealth appropriate,
No armed ships unto the Indies send,
None robs me of my Orient estate.
PILGRIMS
"Have you not seen,
In ancient times,
Pilgrims pass by
Toward other climes,
With shining faces,
Youthful and strong,
Mounting this hill
With speech and with song? "
"Ah, my good sir,
I know not those ways;
Little my knowledge,
Tho' many my days.
When I have slumbered,
I have heard sounds
As of travelers passing
These my grounds.
"'T was a sweet music
Wafted them by,
I could not tell
If afar off or nigh.
Unless I dreamed it,
This was of yore:
I never told it
To mortal before,
Never remembered
But in my dreams
What to me waking
A miracle seems. "
THE DEPARTURE
In this roadstead I have ridden,
In this covert I have hidden;
Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me,
And I hid beneath their lee.
This true people took the stranger,
And warm-hearted housed the ranger;
They received their roving guest,
And have fed him with the best;
Whatsoe'er the land afforded
To the stranger's wish accorded;
Shook the olive, stripped the vine,
And expressed the strengthening wine.
And by night they did spread o'er him
What by day they spread before him;--
That good-will which was repast
Was his covering at last.
The stranger moored him to their pier
Without anxiety or fear;
By day he walked the sloping land,
By night the gentle heavens he scanned.
When first his bark stood inland
To the coast of that far Finland,
Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore
The weary mariner to restore.
And still he stayed from day to day
If he their kindness might repay;
But more and more
The sullen waves came rolling toward the shore.
And still the more the stranger waited,
The less his argosy was freighted,
And still the more he stayed,
The less his debt was paid.
So he unfurled his shrouded mast
To receive the fragrant blast;
And that sane refreshing gale
Which had wooed him to remain
Again and again,
It was that filled his sail
And drove him to the main.
All day the low-hung clouds
Dropt tears into the sea;
And the wind amid the shrouds
Sighed plaintively.
INDEPENDENCE[15]
My life more civil is and free
Than any civil polity.
Ye princes, keep your realms
And circumscribed power,
Not wide as are my dreams,
Nor rich as is this hour.
What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness?
To all true wants Time's ear is deaf,
Penurious states lend no relief
Out of their pelf:
But a free soul--thank God--
Can help itself.
Be sure your fate
Doth keep apart its state,
Not linked with any band,
Even the noblest of the land;
In tented fields with cloth of gold
No place doth hold,
But is more chivalrous than they are,
And sigheth for a nobler war;
A finer strain its trumpet sings,
A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live
No man proposeth me;
No trade upon the street[16]
Wears its emblazonry.
DING DONG[17]
When the world grows old by the chimney-side
Then forth to the youngling nooks I glide,
Where over the water and over the land
The bells are booming on either hand.
Now up they go ding, then down again dong,
And awhile they ring to the same old song,
For the metal goes round at a single bound,
A-cutting the fields with its measured sound,
While the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom
As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.
Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone,
And seldom it is that one sound comes alone,
For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng,
And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.
When the echo hath reached me in this lone vale,
I am straightway a hero in coat of mail,
I tug at my belt and I march on my post,
And feel myself more than a match for a host.
OMNIPRESENCE
Who equaleth the coward's haste,
And still inspires the faintest heart;
Whose lofty fame is not disgraced,
Though it assume the lowest part.
INSPIRATION
If thou wilt but stand by my ear,
When through the field thy anthem's rung,
When that is done I will not fear
But the same power will abet my tongue.
MISSION
I've searched my faculties around,
To learn why life to me was lent:
I will attend the faintest sound,
And then declare to man what God hath meant.
DELAY
No generous action can delay
Or thwart our higher, steadier aims;
But if sincere and true are they,
It will arouse our sight, and nerve our frames.
PRAYER
Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself;
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye;
And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe'er they think or hope it that may be,
They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me;
That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,
And my life practice more than my tongue saith;
That my low conduct may not show,
Nor my relenting lines,
That I thy purpose did not know,
Or overrated thy designs.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] [Eighteen lines of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 181, 182, 351,
372. ]
[9] ["Suggested by the print of Guido's 'Aurora' sent by Mrs. Carlyle
as a wedding gift to Mrs. Emerson. " (Note in _Poems of Nature_. )]
[10] [Five stanzas of this poem appear in _Week_, pp. 46, 47. ]
[11] [The last four lines appear in _Week_, p. 54. ]
[12] ["The first four of these stanzas (unnamed by Thoreau) were
published in the Boston _Commonwealth_ in 1863, under the title of
'The Soul's Season,' the remainder as 'The Fall of the Leaf. ' There
can be little doubt that they are parts of one complete poem. " (Note
in _Poems of Nature_. )]
[13] [See p. 120. ]
[14] ["These stanzas formed part of the original manuscript of the
essay on 'A Winter Walk,' but were excluded by Emerson. " (Note in
_Poems of Nature_. )]
[15] ["First printed in full in the Boston _Commonwealth_, October 30,
1863. The last fourteen lines had appeared in _The Dial_ under the
title of 'The Black Knight,' and are so reprinted in the Riverside
Edition. " (Note in _Poems of Nature_. )]
[16] [In _The Dial_ this line reads, "Only the promise of my heart. "]
[17] ["A copy of this hitherto unpublished poem has been kindly
furnished by Miss A. J. Ward. " (Note in _Poems of Nature_. )]
A LIST OF THE POEMS AND BITS OF VERSE SCATTERED AMONG THOREAU'S PROSE
WRITINGS EXCLUSIVE OF THE JOURNAL
* * * * *
A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS
"The respectable folks" PAGE 7
"Ah, 't is in vain the peaceful din" 15
"But since we sailed" 16
"Here then an aged shepherd dwelt" 16
"On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way" 16
"Who sleeps by day and walks by night" 41
"An early unconverted Saint" 42
"Low in the eastern sky" (TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST) 46
"Dong, sounds the brass in the East" 50
"Greece, who am I that should remember thee" 54
"Some tumultuous little rill" 62
"I make ye an offer" 69
"Conscience is instinct bred in the house" (CONSCIENCE) 75
"Such water do the gods distill" 86
"That Phaeton of our day" 103
"Then spend an age in whetting thy desire" 111
"Though all the fates should prove unkind" 151
"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS) 170
"The western wind came lumbering in" 180
"Then idle Time ran gadding by" 181
"Now chiefly is my natal hour" 182
RUMORS FROM AN AEOLIAN HARP 184
"Away! away! away! away! " 186
"Ply the oars! away! away! " (RIVER SONG, part) 188
"Since that first 'Away! away! '" (RIVER SONG, part) 200
"Low-anchored cloud" (MIST) 201
"Man's little acts are grand" 224
"Our uninquiring corpses lie more low" 227
"The waves slowly beat" 229
"Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze" (HAZE) 229
"Where gleaming fields of haze" 234
TRANSLATIONS FROM ANACREON 240
"Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter" (BOAT SONG) 247
"My life is like a stroll upon the beach" (THE FISHER'S BOY) 255
"This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome" 267
"True kindness is a pure divine affinity" 275
"Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy" (SYMPATHY) 276
THE ATLANTIDES 278
"My love must be as free" (FREE LOVE) 297
"The Good how can we trust? " 298
"Nature doth have her dawn each day" 302
"Let such pure hate still underprop" (FRIENDSHIP) 305
"Men are by birth equal in this, that given" 311
The Inward Morning 313
"My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read" (THE SUMMER RAIN) 320
"My life has been the poem I would have writ" 365
THE POET'S DELAY 366
"I hearing get, who had but ears" 372
"Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend" 373
"Salmon Brook" 375
"Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er" 384
"I am the autumnal sun" (NATURE'S CHILD) 404
"A finer race and finer fed" 407
"I am a parcel of vain strivings tied" (SIC VITA) 410
"All things are current found" 415
WALDEN
"Men say they know many things" 46
"What's the railroad to me? " 135
"It is no dream of mine" 215
"Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird" (SMOKE) 279
THE MAINE WOODS
"Die and be buried who will" 88
EXCURSIONS
"Within the circuit of this plodding life" (WINTER MEMORIES) 103
"We pronounce thee happy, Cicada" (from Anacreon) 108
"His steady sails he never furls" 109
RETURN OF SPRING (from Anacreon) 109
"Each summer sound" 112
"Sometimes I hear the veery's clarion" 112
"Upon the lofty elm tree sprays" (THE VIREO) 112
"Thou dusky spirit of the wood" (THE CROW) 113
"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears" (THE THAW, part) 120
"The river swelleth more and more" (A RIVER SCENE) 120
"The needles of the pine" 133
"With frontier strength ye stand your ground" (MOUNTAINS) 133
"Not unconcerned Wachusett rears his head" 144
"The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell" (SMOKE
IN WINTER) 165
"When Winter fringes every bough" (STANZAS WRITTEN AT
WALDEN) 176
THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD 214
"In two years' time 't had thus" 303
INDEX
Achilles, The Youth of, translation, 385.
Acre, an, as long measure, 60.
Acton (Mass. ), 136.
AEschylus, The Prometheus Bound of, translation, 337-375.
AEsculapius, translation, 380.
Agriculture, the task of Americans, 229-231.
Ajax, The Treatment of, translation, 387.
Alphonse, Jean, and Falls of Montmorenci, 38, 39;
quoted, 91.
America, superiorities of, 220-224.
American, money in Quebec, 24;
the, and government, 82, 83.
Amphiaraus, The Death of, translation, 387.
Anacreon, quoted, 108, 109, 110.
Andropogons, or beard-grasses, 225-258.
Ange Gardien Parish, 42;
church of, 46.
Angler's Souvenir, the, 119.
Apollo, translation, 383.
Apple, history of the tree, 290-298;
the wild, 299, 300;
the crab-, 301, 302;
growth of the wild, 302-308;
cropped by cattle, 303-307;
the fruit and flavor of the, 308-314;
beauty of the, 314, 315;
naming of the, 315-317;
last gleaning of the, 317-319;
the frozen-thawed, 319, 320;
dying out of the wild, 321, 322.
Apple-howling, 298.
Arpent, the, 60.
Ashburnham (Mass. ), 3;
with a better house than any in Canada, 100.
Ash trees, 6.
Assabet, the, 136.
Audubon, John James, reading, 103; 109, note; 112, note.
Aurora of Guido, The, verse, 399.
Autumn foliage, brightness of, 249-252.
AUTUMNAL TINTS, 249-289.
Bartram, William, quoted, 199.
Bathing feet in brooks, 140.
Beard-grasses, andropogons or, 255-258.
Beauport (Que. ), and _le Chemin de_, 30;
getting lodgings in, 35-38;
church in, 69;
Seigniory of, 96.
Beaupre, Seigniory of the Cote de, 41.
"Behold, how spring appearing," verse, 109.
Bellows Falls (Vt. ), 5.
Birch, yellow, 6.
Birds and mountains, 149.
Bittern, booming of the, 111.
Black Knight, The, verse, 415, note.
Blueberries, and milk, supper of, 144.
Bluebird, the, 110.
Bobolink, the, 113.
Bodaeus, quoted, 317.
Bolton (Mass. ), 137.
Bonsecours Market (Montreal), 11.
Books on natural history, reading, 103-105.
Boots, Canadian, 51.
Boston (Mass. ), 3, 7, 9.
Boucher, quoted, 91.
Boucherville (Que. ), 20.
Bouchette, Topographical Description of the Canadas, quoted, 41,
42, 63, 64, 89, 92, 94, 95.
Bout de l'Isle, 20.
Brand's Popular Antiquities quoted, 297, 298.
Bravery of science, the, 106, 107.
"Brother, where dost thou dwell? " verse, 403.
Burlington (Vt. ), 7, 99.
Burton, Sir Richard Francis, 228.
Butternut tree, 6.
Cabs, Montreal, 18;
Quebec, 69, 70.
Caddis-worms, 170.
Caen, Emery de, quoted, 52.
Caleche, the (see Cabs), 69, 70.
Canada, apparently older than the United States, 80, 81;
population of, 81, 82;
the French in, a nation of peasants, 82.
_Canadense_, _Iter_, and the word, 101.
Canadian, French, 9;
horses, 34;
women, 34;
atmosphere, 34;
love of neighborhood, 42, 43;
houses, 44, 59;
clothes, 45;
salutations, 47;
vegetables and trees, 47, 48;
boots, 51;
tenures, 63, 64.
Cane, a straight and a twisted, 184, 185.
Cap aux Oyes, 93.
Cape Diamond, 22, 40;
signal-gun on, 85;
the view from, 88.
Cape Rosier, 92.
Cape Rouge, 21, 95.
Cape Tourmente, 41, 89, 96.
Cartier, Jacques, 7, and the St. Lawrence, 89-91;
quoted, 97, 98, 99.
Castor and Pollux, translation, 388.
Cattle-show, men at, 184.
Cemetery of fallen leaves, 269, 270.
Chaleurs, the Bay of, 90.
Chalmers, Dr. , in criticism of Coleridge, 324.
Chambly (Que. ), 11.
Champlain, Samuel, quoted, 8;
whales in map of, 91.
Charlevoix, quoted, 52, 91.
Chateau Richer, church of, 46, 49;
lodgings at, 59.
Chaucer, quoted, 159, 160.
Chaudiere River, the, 21;
Falls of the, 69, 70.
Cheap men, 29, 30.
Cherry-stones, transported by birds, 188.
Chickadee, the, 108.
Chien, La Riviere au, 56.
Churches, Catholic and Protestant, 12-14;
roadside, 46.
_Claire Fontaine, La_, 26.
Clothes, bad-weather, 28;
Canadian, 45.
Colors, names and joy of, 273-275.
Concord (Mass. ), 3, 6, 8;
History of, quoted, 115, 133, 149, 152.
Concord River, the, 115, 139.
Connecticut River, 5, 145, 147.
_Coureurs de bois_, and _de risques_, 43.
Crickets, the creaking of, 108.
Crookneck squash seeds, Quebec, 87.
Crosses, roadside, 45, 46.
Crow, the, 108;
not imported from Europe, 113.
Crystalline botany, 126, 127.
Culm, bloom in the, 253.
Darby, William, quoted, 93, 94.
Delay, verse, 418.
Departure, The, verse, 414.
Ding Dong, verse, 417.
Dogs in harness, 30.
Drake, Sir Francis, quoted, 325.
Dubartas, quoted, translation of Sylvester, 328, 329.
Ducks, 110.
"Each summer sound," verse, 112.
East Main, Labrador and, health in the words, 104.
Easterbrooks Country, the, 299, 303.
Edda, the Prose, quoted, 291.
Eggs, a master in cooking, 61, 62.
Elm, the, 263, 264, 276.
Elysium, translation, 375.
Emerson, George B. , quoted, 200.
English and French in the New World, 66, 67.
Entomology, the study of, 107, 108.
Evelyn, John, quoted, 310, 311.
_Ex Oriente Lux; ex Occidente Frux_, 221.
Experiences, the paucity of men's, 241, 242.
Eyes, the sight of different men's 285-288.
Fall of the Leaf, The, verse, 407.
Fallen Leaves, 264-270.
Falls, a drug of, 58.
Fame, translation, 378.
Fish, spearing, 119, 121-123.
Fisher, the pickerel, 180, 181.
Fishes, described in Massachusetts Report, 118.
Fitchburg (Mass. ), 3.
Fitzwilliam (N. H. ), 4.
Foreign country, quickly in a, 31.
Forests, nations preserved by, 229.
Fortifications, ancient and modern, 77, 78.
Fox, the, 117.
French, difficulties in talking, 35-37, 47;
strange, 50;
pure, 52;
in the New World, English and, 66-68;
in Canada, 81, 82;
the, spoken in Quebec streets, 86, 87.
Friends, The Value of, translation, 387.
Froissart, good place to read, 23.
Frost-smoke, 166.
Funeral Bell, The, verse, 405.
Fur Countries, inspiring neighborhood of the, 105.
Garget, poke or, 253-255.
Geese, first flock of, 110.
Gesner, Konrad von, quoted, 318.
Gosse, P. A. , Canadian Naturalist, 91.
Great Brook, 137.
Great Fields, the, 257.
"Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf," verse, 418.
Great River, the, or St. Lawrence, 89, 90, 91, 92.
Greece, verse, 404.
Greece, The Freedom of, translation, 390.
Green Mountains, the, 6, 100, 145, 147.
Grey, the traveler, quoted, 94.
Grippling for apples, 309.
Gulls, 110.
Guyot, Arnold, 93;
quoted, 93, 94, 220, 221.
Harvard (Mass. ), 151, 152.
"Have you not seen," verse, 413.
Hawk, fish, 110.
Head, Sir Francis, quoted, 47, 221, 222.
Height of Glory, The, translation,384.
Hercules, names the Hill of Kronos, translation, 377.
Hercules' Prayer concerning Ajax, son of Telamon, translation,
390.
Herrick, Robert, 298.
Hickory, the, 264, 265.
Highlanders in Quebec, 25-27, 28, 29, 79.
"His steady sails he never furls," verse, 109.
Hoar-frost, 126, 127.
Hochelaga, 89, 97, 99.
Homer, quoted, 181.
Hoosac Mountains, 147.
Hop, culture of the, 136, 137.
Horses, Canadian, 34.
_Hortus siccus_, nature in winter a, 179.
House, the perfect, 153.
Houses, Canadian, 44, 59;
American compared with Canadian, 100.
Humboldt, Alexander von, 92, 93.
Hunt House, the old, 201.
Hypseus' Daughter Cyrene, translation, 383.
"I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, 409.
"I see the civil sun drying earth's tears," verse, 120.
Ice, the booming of, 176.
Ice formations in a river-bank, 128, 129.
"If I am poor," verse, 412.
"If thou wilt but stand by my ear," verse, 418.
"If with light head erect I sing," verse, 396.
Ignorance, Society for the Diffusion of Useful, 239.
Imitations of Charette drivers, Yankee, 99.
"In this roadstead I have ridden," verse, 414.
"In two years' time 't had thus," verse, 303.
Independence, verse, 415.
Indoors, living, 207-209.
Inn, inscription on wall of Swedish, 141.
Inspiration, quatrain, 418.
Inspiration, verse, 396.
Invertebrate Animals, Report on, quoted, 129.
"I've searched my faculties around," verse, 418.
Jay, the, 108, 199.
Jesuit Relations, quoted, 96.
Jesuits' Barracks, the, in Quebec, 24.
Joel, the prophet, quoted, 322.
Jonson, Ben, quoted, 226.
Josselyn, John, quoted, 2.
Kalm, Swedish traveler, quoted, 21, 30, 39, 65;
on sea-plants near Quebec, 93.
Keene (N. H. ) Street, 4;
heads like, 4.
Kent, the Duke of, property of, 38.
Killington Peak, 6.
Knowledge, the slow growth of, 181;
Society for the Diffusion of Useful, 239;
true, 240.
Labrador and East Main, health in the words, 104.
Lake, a woodland, in winter, 174, 175.
Lake Champlain, 6-8.
Lake St. Peter, 96, 97.
Lalement, Hierosme, quoted, 22.
Lancaster (Mass. ), 138, 139, 149.
LANDLORD, THE, 153-162.
Landlord, qualities of the, 153-162.
La Prairie (Que. ), 11, 18, 99.
Lark, the, 109, 110.
Lead, rain of, 26.
Leaves, fallen, 264-270;
scarlet oak, 278-281.
Lincoln (Mass. ), 282, 283.
Linnaeus, quoted, 222.
Longueuil (Que. ), 20.
Loudon, John Claudius, quoted, 197, 200, 291, 292, 310.
"Low in the eastern sky," verse, 400.
McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary, quoted, 49.
