SOUNDS. 
133 
air is filled with the bleating of calves and sheep, 
and the hustling of oxen, as if a pastoral valley were 
going by. When the old bell-weather at the head rat¬ 
tles his bell, the mountains do indeed skip like rams and 
the little hills like lambs. A car-load of drovers, too, 
in the midst, on a level with their droves now, their vo¬ 
cation gone, but still clinging to their useless sticks as 
their badge of office. But their dogs, where are they ? 
It is a stampede to them; they are quite thrown out; 
they have lost the scent. Methinks I hear them bark¬ 
ing behind the Peterboro’ Hills, or panting up the west¬ 
ern slope of the Green Mountains. They will not be 
in at the death. Their vocation, too, is gone. Their 
fidelity and sagacity are below par now. They will 
slink back to their kennels in disgrace, or perchance 
run wild and strike a league with the wolf and the fox. 
So is your pastoral life whirled past and away. But 
the bell rings, and I must get off the track and let 
the cars go by; —- 
What’s the railroad to me ? 
I never go to see 
Where it ends. 
It fills a few hollows, 
And makes banks for the swallows, 
It sets the sand a-blowing, 
And the blackberries a-growing, 
but I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will not 
have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by its 
smoke and steam and hissing. 
Now that the cars are gone by and all the restless 
world with them, and the fishes in the pond no longer 
