[1833.]
I know not, I ask not, what
guilt’s in thy heart, But I feel
that I love thee, whatever thou art.
Moor.
The township of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, contained,
in the autumn of 1641, the second year of its settlement,
but six dwelling-houses, situated near each other,
on the site of the present village. They were
hastily constructed of rude logs, small and inconvenient,
but one remove from the habitations of the native
dwellers of the wilderness. Around each a small
opening had been made through the thick forest, down
to the margin of the river, where, amidst the charred
and frequent stumps and fragments of fallen trees,
the first attempts at cultivation had been made.
A few small patches of Indian corn, which had now
nearly reached maturity, exhibited their thick ears
and tasselled stalks, bleached by the frost and sunshine;
and, here and there a spot of yellow stubble, still
lingering among the rough incumbrances of the soil,
told where a scanty crop of common English grain had
been recently gathered. Traces of some of the
earlier vegetables were perceptible, the melon, the
pea, and the bean. The pumpkin lay ripening
on its frosted vines, its sunny side already changed
to a bright golden color; and the turnip spread out
its green mat of leaves in defiance of the season.
Everything around realized the vivid picture of Bryant’s
Emigrant, who:
“Hewed
the dark old woods away,
And
gave the virgin fields to the day
And
the pea and the bean beside the door
Bloomed
where such flowers ne’er bloomed before;
And
the maize stood up, and the bearded rye
Bent
low in the breath of an unknown sky.”
Beyond, extended the great forest, vast, limitless,
unexplored, whose venerable trees had hitherto bowed
only to the presence of the storm, the beaver’s
tooth, and the axe of Time, working in the melancholy
silence of natural decay. Before the dwellings
of the white adventurers, the broad Merrimac rolled
quietly onward the piled-up foliage of its shores,
rich with the hues of a New England autumn. The
first sharp frosts, the avant couriers of approaching
winter, had fallen, and the whole wilderness was in
blossom. It was like some vivid picture of Claude
Lorraine, crowded with his sunsets and rainbows, a
natural kaleidoscope of a thousand colors. The
oak upon the hillside stood robed in summer’s
greenness, in strong contrast with the topaz-colored
walnut. The hemlock brooded gloomily in the lowlands,
forming, with its unbroken mass of shadow, a dark
background for the light maple beside it, bright with
its peculiar beauty. The solemn shadows of the
pine rose high in the hazy atmosphere, checkered, here
and there, with the pale yellow of the birch.
