THE AMERICAN DEER. 233 
That is an aspiration: which all men, who have tasted 
of the freshness, the originality, the primitive elastic 
vigor of the woodland life, untrammeled by no formule, 
fettered by no false and absurd conventionalities, a life 
emphatically of men, desire to taste again—yearn after 
it, how eagerly, when debarred from it by the hateful 
necessities of business—and, when they return to it, 
after years of desuetude, greet it as old men would greet 
renewed manhood, or exiles restored home. This is the 
feeling which is so instinct of life, and sunshine, and 
breezy freshness in the writings of the earlier and more 
original of England’s poets—which prompted one great 
Roman to cry mournfully, “ O rus, O rus, quando ego te 
aspiciam,” and another to admit half apologetically, as 
if it were in some sort a reproach, “ /lumina amem et 
> and in all breasts a 
sylvas mutosque inglorius ammnes ;” 
something of this hunter’s spirit, under one form or 
other will burst perennial, until we go whither the weary 
are at rest, and the wicked cease from troubling. And 
a good spirit it is, in moderation, and good to be 
indulged—and so up with the forest chaunt. 
So it is—yet let us sing 
Honor to the old bowstring ! 
Honor to the bugle horn! \ 
Honor to the woods unshorn ! 
Honor to the Lincoln green ! 
Honor to the wocdman keen! 
