DEAR HELEN,--In place of something fresher, I send you the following
verses from my Journal, written some time ago:--
Brother, where dost thou dwell?
What sun shines for thee now?
Dost thou indeed fare well
As we wished here below?
What season didst thou find?
'T was 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?[24]
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.
As the first letter of Thoreau to Emerson was to thank him for his
lofty friendship, so now the first letter to Mrs. Emerson, after
leaving her house, was to say similar things, with a passing allusion
to her love of flowers and of gardening, in which she surpassed all
his acquaintance in Concord, then and afterward. A letter to Emerson
followed, touching on the _Dial_ and on several of his new and old
acquaintance. "Rockwood Hoar" is the person since known as judge and
cabinet officer,--the brother of Senator Hoar, and of Thoreau's
special friends Elizabeth and Edward Hoar. Channing is the poet, who
had lately printed his first volume, without finding many readers.