What need confound the sphere,—­
     Love can afford to wait,
     For it no hour’s too late
     That witnesseth one duty’s end,
     Or to another doth beginning lend.

     It will subserve no use,
     More than the tints of flowers,
     Only the independent guest
     Frequents its bowers,
     Inherits its bequest.

     No speech though kind has it,
     But kinder silence doles
     Unto its mates,
     By night consoles,
     By day congratulates.

     What saith the tongue to tongue? 
     What heareth ear of ear? 
     By the decrees of fate
     From year to year,
     Does it communicate.

     Pathless the gulf of feeling yawns,—­
     No trivial bridge of words,
     Or arch of boldest span,
     Can leap the moat that girds
     The sincere man.

     No show of bolts and bars
     Can keep the foeman out,
     Or ’scape his secret mine
     Who entered with the doubt
     That drew the line.

     No warder at the gate
     Can let the friendly in,
     But, like the sun, o’er all
     He will the castle win,
     And shine along the wall.

     There’s nothing in the world I know
     That can escape from love,
     For every depth it goes below,
     And every height above.

     It waits as waits the sky,
     Until the clouds go by,
     Yet shines serenely on
     With an eternal day,
     Alike when they are gone,
     And when they stay.

     Implacable is Love,—­
     Foes may be bought or teased
     From their hostile intent,
     But he goes unappeased
     Who is on kindness bent.

Having rowed five or six miles above Amoskeag before sunset, and reached a pleasant part of the river, one of us landed to look for a farm-house, where we might replenish our stores, while the other remained cruising about the stream, and exploring the opposite shores to find a suitable harbor for the night.  In the mean while the canal-boats began to come round a point in our rear, poling their way along close to the shore, the breeze having quite died away.  This time there was no offer of assistance, but one of the boatmen only called out to say, as the truest revenge for having been the losers in the race, that he had seen a wood-duck, which we had scared up, sitting on a tall white-pine, half a mile down stream; and he repeated the assertion several times, and seemed really chagrined at the apparent suspicion with which this information was received.  But there sat the summer duck still, undisturbed by us.

By and by the other voyageur returned from his inland expedition, bringing one of the natives with him, a little flaxen-headed boy, with some tradition, or small edition, of Robinson Crusoe in his head, who had been charmed by the account of our adventures, and asked his father’s leave to join us.  He examined, at first from the top of the bank, our boat and furniture, with sparkling eyes, and wished himself already his own man.  He was a lively and interesting boy, and we should have been glad to ship him; but Nathan was still his father’s boy, and had not come to years of discretion.