So many streams, so many meadows
and woods and quiet dwellings of men had lain concealed between
us and those Delectable Mountains;--from yonder hill on the road
to Tyngsborough you may get a good view of them. There where it
seemed uninterrupted forest to our youthful eyes, between two
neighboring pines in the horizon, lay the valley of the Nashua,
and this very stream was even then winding at its bottom, and
then, as now, it was here silently mingling its waters with the
Merrimack. The clouds which floated over its meadows and were
born there, seen far in the west, gilded by the rays of the
setting sun, had adorned a thousand evening skies for us. But as
it were, by a turf wall this valley was concealed, and in our
journey to those hills it was first gradually revealed to us.
Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the
mountains, to which distance and indistinctness lent a grandeur
not their own, so that they served to interpret all the allusions
of poets and travellers. Standing on the Concord Cliffs we thus
spoke our mind to them:--
With frontier strength ye stand your ground,
With grand content ye circle round,
Tumultuous silence for all sound,
Ye distant nursery of rills,
Monadnock and the Peterborough Hills;--
Firm argument that never stirs,
Outcircling the philosophers,--
Like some vast fleet,
Sailing through rain and sleet,
Through winter's cold and summer's heat;
Still holding on upon your high emprise,
Until ye find a shore amid the skies;
Not skulking close to land,
With cargo contraband,
For they who sent a venture out by ye
Have set the Sun to see
Their honesty.
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