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Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862

"A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"


Behold these flowers, let us be up with time,
Not dreaming of three thousand years ago,
Erect ourselves and let those columns lie,
Not stoop to raise a foil against the sky.
Where is the spirit of that time but in
This present day, perchance the present line?
Three thousand years ago are not agone,
They are still lingering in this summer morn,
And Memnon's Mother sprightly greets us now,
Wearing her youthful radiance on her brow.
If Carnac's columns still stand on the plain,
To enjoy our opportunities they remain.
In these parts dwelt the famous Sachem Pasaconaway, who was seen
by Gookin "at Pawtucket, when he was about one hundred and twenty
years old." He was reputed a wise man and a powwow, and
restrained his people from going to war with the English. They
believed "that he could make water burn, rocks move, and trees
dance, and metamorphose himself into a flaming man; that in
winter he could raise a green leaf out of the ashes of a dry one,
and produce a living snake from the skin of a dead one, and many
similar miracles.


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