SOUNDS. 
127 
steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in golden 
and silver wreaths, like many a downy cloud which I 
have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its masses to 
the light, — as if this travelling demigod, this cloud- 
compeller, would ere long take the sunset sky for the 
livery of his train; when I hear the iron horse make 
the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the 
earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from 
his nostrils, (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon 
they will put into the new Mythology I don’t know,) it 
seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to in¬ 
habit it. If all were as it seems, and men made the 
elements their servants for noble ends! If the cloud 
that hangs over the engine were the perspiration of 
heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over 
the farmer’s fields, then the elements and Nature her¬ 
self would cheerfully accompany men on their errands 
and be their escort. 
I watch the passage of the morning cars with the 
same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is 
hardly more regular. Their train of clouds stretching 
far behind and rising higher and higher, going to heaven 
while the cars are going to Boston, conceals the sun for 
a 'minute and casts my distant field into the shade, a 
celestial train beside which the petty train of cars which 
hugs the earth is but the barb of the spear. The sta¬ 
bler of the iron horse was up early this winter morning by 
the light of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and 
harness his steed. Fire, too, was awakened thus early 
to put the vital heat in him and get him off. If the en¬ 
terprise were as innocent as it is early! If the snow 
lies deep, they strap on his snow-shoes, and with the 
giant plough plough a furrow from the mountains to the 
