1 1 2 IValks in New England 



If that repose may end in what is called death, 

 who quarrels with that in the forest? It is as 

 fruitful and more peaceful than what is called life. 

 After this life has been lived, and we have done 

 what it was allotted us to do, the dismissal is even 

 joyous. In the midst of the odorous cedars and 

 hackmatacks, with many a blossoming shrub 

 around, and the red sweet waters noiselessly mov 

 ing into and from the deep, dark pond, as the 

 sun sinks behind the forest, and its depths grow 

 dusky, and warm fragrances steal from the flowers 

 whose faces hold the vanishing light though all 

 the bushes are vague, as the wild, strange waves 

 of delicate colour rise in the sky above the depart 

 ing sun, and the thrush, deep in the wood, sends 

 forth its sweet and thrilling vesper, like the notes 

 of a group of rich organ-pipes springing forth out 

 of the harmonious chords of the great instrument 

 of Nature in its noble largo appassionato, at such 

 an hour the thought which Whitman has so nobly 

 expressed in President Lincoln s burial hymn may 

 well come to mind. 



Whitman was no shy recluse of Nature, no 

 wanderer of woods and fields he was a vivid, 

 robust, hearty adorer of human life in every shape, 

 there was no limit to his sympathy and fellow 

 ship in all that men do. But it was reserved for 

 such a man as this to express more poignantly 



