102 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



cattle graze on the hills in herds as great now as 

 then, and as broad cornfields toss their golden 

 plumes toward the sky. The houses where dwelt 

 Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, still stand, and 

 into the fields round about them few others have 

 crowded. The fertile soil still yields crops to the 

 husbandman, in whose breast slumbers mayhap 

 the same sturdy courage which made the Minute 

 Men and would make others should the need 

 arise. Manufacturing, summer hotel keeping, 

 these things do not seem to have touched the town 

 much. I fancy it as lying fallow, waiting the 

 flow of that ichor of the immortals that shall 

 some day again waken it to great things. 



" The Sphinx is drowsy, 

 Her wings are furled; 

 Her ear is heavy, 

 She broods on the world, 

 Who '11 tell me my secret, 

 The ages have kept ? 

 I awaited the seer 

 While they slumbered and slept. 



" The fate of the man-child, 

 The meaning of man; 

 Known fruit of the unknown; 

 Daedalian plan; 



