24 February 1840 – 1 March 1840

A stir is on the Worcester hills, And Nobscot too the valley fills; Where scarce you'd fill an acorn cup In summer when the sun was up, No more you'll find a cup at all, But in its place a waterfall. O that the moon were in conjunction To the dry land's extremest unction, Till every dike and pier were flooded, And all the land with islands studded, For once to teach all human kind, Both those that plow and those that grind, There is no fixture in the land, But all unstable is as sand. The river swelleth more and more, Like some sweet influence stealing o'er The passive town; and for a while Each tussock makes a tiny isle, Where, on some friendly Ararat, Resteth the weary water-rat. No ripple shows Musketaquid, Her very current e'en is hid, As deepest souls do calmest rest When thoughts are swelling in the breast; And she, that in the summer's drought Doth make a rippling and a rout, Sleeps from Nawshawtuct to the Cliff, Unruffled by a single skiff; So like a deep and placid mind Whose currents underneath it wind, For by a thousand distant hills The louder roar a thousand rills, And many a spring which now is dumb, And many a stream with smothered hum, Doth faster well and swifter glide, Though buried deep beneath the tide. Our village shows a rural Venice, Its broad lagunes where yonder fen is, Far lovelier than the Bay of Naples Yon placid cove amid the maples, And in my neighbor's field of corn I recognize the Golden Horn. Here Nature taught from year to year, When only red men came to hear, Methinks 'twas in this school of art Venice and Naples learned their part, But still their mistress, to my mind, Her young disciples leaves behind.

The most important events make no stir on their first taking place, nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem hedged about by secrecy. It is concussion, or the rushing together of air to fill a vacuum, which makes a noise. The great events to which all things consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no explosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to be suddenly filled; as a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered about the neighborhood, but an assassination, which is at war with the constitution of things, creates a tumult immediately. Corn grows in the night.

Some geniuses seem to hover in the horizon, like heat lightning, which is not accompanied with fertilizing rain to us, but we are obliged to rest contented with the belief that it is purifying the air somewhere. Others make known their presence by their effects, like that vivid lightning which is accompanied by copious rain and thunder and, though it clears our atmosphere, sometimes destroys our lives. Others still impart a steady and harmless light at once to large tracts, as the aurora borealis; and this phenomenon is hardest to be accounted for, some thinking it to be a reflection of the polar splendor, others a subtle fluid which pervades all things and tends always to the zenith. All are agreed that these are equally electrical phenomena, as some clever persons have shown by drawing a spark with their knuckles. Modern philosophy thinks it has drawn down lightning from the clouds.

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.

A friend advises by his whole behavior, and never condescends to particulars; another chides away a fault, he loves it away. While he sees the other's error, he is silently conscious of it, and only the more loves truth himself, and assists his friend in loving it, till the fault is expelled and gently extinguished.