TO A TRESPASS SIGN 



mine a birthright, as always I hoped it 

 might be of my sons and my sons' sons. 

 What to the usurpers of our rights are 

 these woods and waters but a place for 

 the killing of game and fish ? They do 

 not love, as a man the roof-tree where- 

 under he was born, these arches and low 

 aisles of the woods ; they do not know as 

 I do every silver loop of the brook, every 

 tree whose quivering reflection throbs 

 across its eddies ; its voice is only babble 

 to their ears, the song of the pines tells 

 them no story of bygone years. 



Of all comers here, I who expected 

 most kindly welcome am most inhospit- 

 ably treated. All my old familiars, the 

 birds, the beasts, and the fishes, may fly 

 over thee, walk beneath thee, swim 

 around thee, but to me thou art a wall 

 that I may not pass. 



I despise thee and spit upon thee, thou 

 most impudent intruder, thou insolent 

 sentinel, thou odious monument of self- 

 ishness, but I dare not lay hands upon 

 thee and cast thee down and trample 

 thee in the dust of the earth as thou 

 shouldst of right be entreated. To rid 

 myself of thy hateful sight, I can only 

 86 



