FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 73 



And now I look through the vacant space 

 on the terrace upon the hillside, within the 

 boundaries which I have roughly marked 

 by four fragments of trap-rock, and all the 

 multitudinous interests and queries of 

 human life rise before my imagination. 



Can we see the ghosts of what is to be, 

 as well as of what has already been ? So 

 far no very terrible ghosts have appeared 

 to me. It seems easy to think of the cot 

 tage as growing naturally out of the ground, 

 the moss-covered masses from the ledge 

 and the old stone fences taking their places 

 in the walls, and offering a welcome to the 

 vines that may come to cling to them. And 

 the sunlight will stream easily through the 

 broad windows, and glow upon book and 

 picture, where now the free winds play 

 and leave no track. And music of dulcimer 

 and of sackbut and psaltery and harp in 

 their modern concentrated form will take 

 the place of the winds that whistle free, 

 and mayhap the wind itself, moulded upon 

 delicate vocal cords, may sing the finer 

 airs of the great human composers. 



And where now there are only flashes of 

 light and pulses of free air, there may per 

 chance be flashes of thought, gleams of 

 imagination, heroic impulses. For who 



