Love once among roses
Saw not
A sleeping bee, but was stung;
And being wounded in the finger
Of his hand, cried for pain.
Running as well as flying
To the beautiful Venus,
I am killed, mother, said he,
I am killed, and I die.
A little serpent has stung me,
Winged, which they call
A bee,—the husbandmen.
And she said, If the sting
Of a bee afflicts you,
How, think you, are they afflicted,
Love, whom you smite?
—————
Late in the afternoon, for we had lingered long on the island, we
raised our sail for the first time, and for a short hour the southwest
wind was our ally; but it did not please Heaven to abet us along. With
one sail raised we swept slowly up the eastern side of the stream,
steering clear of the rocks, while, from the top of a hill which formed
the opposite bank, some lumberers were rolling down timber to be rafted
down the stream. We could see their axes and levers gleaming in the
sun, and the logs came down with a dust and a rumbling sound, which was
reverberated through the woods beyond us on our side, like the roar of
artillery. But Zephyr soon took us out of sight and hearing of this
commerce. Having passed Read’s Ferry, and another island called McGaw’s
Island, we reached some rapids called Moore’s Falls, and entered on
“that section of the river, nine miles in extent, converted, by law,
into the Union Canal, comprehending in that space six distinct falls;
at each of which, and at several intermediate places, work has been
done.” After passing Moore’s Falls by means of locks, we again had
recourse to our oars, and went merrily on our way, driving the small
sandpiper from rock to rock before us, and sometimes rowing near enough
to a cottage on the bank, though they were few and far between, to see
the sunflowers, and the seed vessels of the poppy, like small goblets
filled with the water of Lethe, before the door, but without disturbing
the sluggish household behind. Thus we held on, sailing or dipping our
way along with the paddle up this broad river, smooth and placid,
flowing over concealed rocks, where we could see the pickerel lying low
in the transparent water, eager to double some distant cape, to make
some great bend as in the life of man, and see what new perspective
would open; looking far into a new country, broad and serene, the
cottages of settlers seen afar for the first time, yet with the moss of
a century on their roofs, and the third or fourth generation in their
shadows. Strange was it to consider how the sun and the summer, the
buds of spring and the seared leaves of autumn, were related to these
cabins along the shore; how all the rays which paint the landscape
radiate from them, and the flight of the crow and the gyrations of the
hawk have reference to their roofs. Still the ever rich and fertile
shores accompanied us, fringed with vines and alive with small birds
and frisking squirrels, the edge of some farmer’s field or widow’s
wood-lot, or wilder, perchance, where the muskrat, the little medicine
of the river, drags itself along stealthily over the alder-leaves and
muscle-shells, and man and the memory of man are banished far.
At length the unwearied, never-sinking shore, still holding on without
break, with its cool copses and serene pasture-grounds, tempted us to
disembark; and we adventurously landed on this remote coast, to survey
it, without the knowledge of any human inhabitant probably to this day.
But we still remember the gnarled and hospitable oaks which grew even
there for our entertainment, and were no strangers to us, the lonely
horse in his pasture, and the patient cows, whose path to the river, so
judiciously chosen to overcome the difficulties of the way, we
followed, and disturbed their ruminations in the shade; and, above all,
the cool, free aspect of the wild apple-trees, generously proffering
their fruit to us, though still green and crude,—the hard, round,
glossy fruit, which, if not ripe, still was not poison, but New-English
too, brought hither its ancestors by ours once. These gentler trees
imparted a half-civilized and twilight aspect to the otherwise
barbarian land. Still farther on we scrambled up the rocky channel of a
brook, which had long served nature for a sluice there, leaping like it
from rock to rock through tangled woods, at the bottom of a ravine,
which grew darker and darker, and more and more hoarse the murmurs of
the stream, until we reached the ruins of a mill, where now the ivy
grew, and the trout glanced through the crumbling flume; and there we
imagined what had been the dreams and speculations of some early
settler. But the waning day compelled us to embark once more, and
redeem this wasted time with long and vigorous sweeps over the rippling
stream.
It was still wild and solitary, except that at intervals of a mile or
two the roof of a cottage might be seen over the bank. This region, as
we read, was once famous for the manufacture of straw bonnets of the
Leghorn kind, of which it claims the invention in these parts; and
occasionally some industrious damsel tripped down to the water’s edge,
to put her straw a-soak, as it appeared, and stood awhile to watch the
retreating voyageurs, and catch the fragment of a boat-song which we
had made, wafted over the water.
Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter,
Many a lagging year agone,
Gliding o’er thy rippling waters,
Lowly hummed a natural song.
Now the sun’s behind the willows,
Now he gleams along the waves,
Faintly o’er the wearied billows
Come the spirits of the braves.
Just before sundown we reached some more falls in the town of Bedford,
where some stone-masons were employed repairing the locks in a solitary
part of the river. They were interested in our adventure, especially
one young man of our own age, who inquired at first if we were bound up
to “’Skeag”; and when he had heard our story, and examined our outfit,
asked us other questions, but temperately still, and always turning to
his work again, though as if it were become his duty. It was plain that
he would like to go with us, and, as he looked up the river, many a
distant cape and wooded shore were reflected in his eye, as well as in
his thoughts. When we were ready he left his work, and helped us
through the locks with a sort of quiet enthusiasm, telling us that we
were at Coos Falls, and we could still distinguish the strokes of his
chisel for many sweeps after we had left him.
We wished to camp this night on a large rock in the middle of the
stream, just above these falls, but the want of fuel, and the
difficulty of fixing our tent firmly, prevented us; so we made our bed
on the main-land opposite, on the west bank, in the town of Bedford, in
a retired place, as we supposed, there being no house in sight.