A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers - Pennsylvania State ...

I gave my arm to the king.
The aged hero seized my hand;
He heaved a heavy sigh;
Tears flowed incessant down his cheek.
‘Strong art thou, son of the mighty,
Though not so dreadful as Morven’s prince.
Let my feast be spread in the hall,
Let every sweet-voiced minstrel sing;
Great is he who is within my walls,
Sons of wave-echoing Croma.’”
Even Ossian himself, the hero-bard, pays tribute to the superior
strength of his father Fingal.
“How beauteous, mighty man, was thy mind,
Why succeeded Ossian without its strength?”
While we sailed fleetly before the wind, with the river gurgling
under our stern, the thoughts of autumn coursed as
A <strong>Week</strong> on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
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steadily through our minds, and we observed less what was
passing on the shore, than the dateless associations and impressions
which the season awakened, anticipating in some
measure the progress of the year.
I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before,
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning’s lore.
Sitting with our faces now up stream, we studied the landscape
by degrees, as one unrolls a map, rock, tree, house,
hill, and meadow, assuming new and varying positions as
wind and water shifted the scene, and there was variety
enough for our entertainment in the metamorphoses of the
simplest objects. Viewed from this side the scenery appeared
new to us.
The most familiar sheet of water viewed from a new hilltop,
yields a novel and unexpected pleasure. When we have
travelled a few miles, we do not recognize the profiles even