MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



from loneliness and isolation; but a travelled 

 sea, where all day long white specks come and 

 go, is the highway of the world; and though 

 you do not see these neighbors* faces, or catch 

 their words, the drifted vapor, and the sheen 

 of the sails, and the streaming pennants yield 

 a sense of nearness and companionship that 

 gives rein and verge to a man's humanity. 



Then, physically, — what reach ! Heaven and 

 earth touch their great circles in your eye; the 

 touch that bounds human vision wherever you 

 may go. No height can lift you to a grander 

 touch, or alter one iota its magnificent propor- 

 tions. With a land horizon, it may be an occa- 

 sional hill that conceals the outmost bound, — 

 a temple or a tree ; it is various and uncertain ; 

 even upon the prairie a harvest of flowers may 

 fringe it with an edge that the autumn fires 

 consume, or which a trampling herd may beat 

 down; but where sea touches sky, there, for- 

 ever, is the line immutable, which runs be- 

 tween our home and the spacious heaven, that 

 buoys, and bears us. And thence, with every 

 noontide, the sun pours a fiery profusion of 

 gold up to your feet; and there, every full 

 moon paves a broad path with silver. 



So, with each of the features I have claimed, 

 come kingly pictures;— not least of all to the 



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