’There goes,—­but stet nominis umbra,—­his name
You’ll be glad enough, some day or other, to claim, 1460
And will all crowd about him and swear that you knew him
If some English critic should chance to review him. 
The old porcos ante ne projiciatis
MARGARITAS, for him you have verified gratis;
What matters his name?  Why, it may be Sylvester,
Judd, Junior, or Junius, Ulysses, or Nestor,
For aught I know or care; ’tis enough that I look
On the author of “Margaret,” the first Yankee book
With the soul of Down East in ’t, and things farther East,
As far as the threshold of morning, at least, 1470
Where awaits the fair dawn of the simple and true,
Of the day that comes slowly to make all things new. 
’T has a smack of pine woods, of bare field and bleak hill,
Such as only the breed of the Mayflower could till;
The Puritan’s shown in it, tough to the core,
Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red Marston Moor: 
With an unwilling humor, half choked by the drouth
In brown hollows about the inhospitable mouth;
With a soul full of poetry, though it has qualms
About finding a happiness out of the Psalms; 1480
Full of tenderness, too, though it shrinks in the dark,
Hamadryad-like, under the coarse, shaggy bark;
That sees visions, knows wrestlings of God with the Will,
And has its own Sinais and thunderings still.’

Here, ‘Forgive me, Apollo,’ I cried, ’while I pour
My heart out to my birthplace:  O loved more and more
Dear Baystate, from whose rocky bosom thy sons
Should suck milk, strong-will-giving, brave, such as runs
In the veins of old Greylock—­who is it that dares 1489
Call thee pedler, a soul wrapped in bank-books and shares? 
It is false!  She’s a Poet!  I see, as I write,
Along the far railroad the steam-snake glide white,
The cataract-throb of her mill-hearts, I hear,
The swift strokes of trip-hammers weary my ear,
Sledges ring upon anvils, through logs the saw screams,
Blocks swing to their place, beetles drive home the beams:—­
It is songs such as these that she croons to the din
Of her fast-flying shuttles, year out and year in,
While from earth’s farthest corner there comes not a breeze
But wafts her the buzz of her gold-gleaning bees:  1500
What though those horn hands have as yet found small time
For painting and sculpture and music and rhyme? 
These will come in due order; the need that pressed sorest
Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, the forest,
To bridle and harness the rivers, the steam,
Making those whirl her mill-wheels, this tug in her team,
To vassalize old tyrant Winter, and make
Him delve surlily for her on river and lake;—­
When this New World was parted, she strove not to shirk
Her lot in the heirdom, the tough, silent Work, 1510
The hero-share ever from Herakles down