ous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!

To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,
Save yon exigous pool's conferva-scum,--
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--
Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--crump!

--I have lived by the sea-shore and by the mountains.--No, I am not
going to say which is best. The one where your place is is the best
for you. But this difference there is: you can domesticate mountains,
but the sea is _ferae naturae_. You may have a hut, or know the owner
of one, on the mountain-side; you see a light half-way up its ascent
in the evening, and you know there is a home, and you might share it.
You have noted certain trees, perhaps; you know the particular zone
where the hemlocks look so black in October, when the maples and
beeches have faded. All its reliefs and intaglios have electrotyped
themselves in the medallions that hang round the walls of your
memory's chamber.--The sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks
your feet,--its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you; but it will
crack your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned
foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened. The mountains give
their lost children berries and water; the sea mocks their thirst and
lets them die. The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable
tranquillity; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. The
mountains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful to
look upon, but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales until
you cannot see their joints,--but their shining is that of a snake's
belly, after all.--In deeper suggestiveness I find as great a
difference. The mountains dwarf mankind and foreshorten the procession
of its long generations. The sea drowns out humanity and time; it has
no sympathy with either; for it belongs to eternity, and of that it
sings its monotonous song forever and ever.

Yet I should love to have a little box by the sea-shore. I should love
to gaze out on the wild feline element from a front window of my own,
just as I should love to look on a caged panther, and see it stretch
its shining length