A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers By: Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
First Page: A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. [page] A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS By HENRY D. THOREAU, AUTHOR OF "WALDEN," ETC. [page] Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me, Though now thou climbest loftier mounts, And fairer rivers dost ascend, Be thou my Muse, my Brother . [page] I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore, By a lonely isle, by a far Azore, There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek, On the barren sands of a desolate creek. [page] I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind, New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find; Many fair reaches and headlands appeared, And many dangers were there to be feared; But when I remember where I have been, And the fair landscapes that I have seen, ^Thou^ seemest the only permanent shore, The cape never rounded, nor wandered o'er. [page] Fluminaque obliquis cinxit declivia ripis; Quae, diversa locis, partim sorbentur ab ipsa; In mare perveniunt partim, campoque recepta Liberioris aquae, pro ripis litora pulsant. ^Ovid^, Met. I. 39 He confined the rivers within their sloping banks, Which in different places are part absorbed by the earth, Part reach the sea, and being received within the plain Of its freer waters, beat the shore for banks. [page] CONCORD RIVER. "Beneath low hills, in the broad interval Through which at will our Indian rivulet Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, Here, in pine houses, built of new fallen trees, Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell." ^Emerson^. The Musketaquid, or Grass ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilized history, until the fame of its grassy meadows and its fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of ^Concord^ from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have been commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peaceable lives on its banks. To an extinct race it was grass ground, where they hunted and fished, and it is still perennial grass ground to Concord farmers, who own the Great Meadows, and get the hay from year to year. "One branch of it," according to the historian of Concord, for I love to quote so good authority, "rises in the south part of Hopkinton, and another from a pond and a large cedar swamp in Westborough," and flowing between Hopkinton and Southborough, through Framingham, and between Sudbury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called Sudbury River, it enters Concord at the south part of the town, and after receiving the North or Assabeth River, which has its source a little farther to the north and west, goes out at the northeast angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle, and through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack at Lowell. In Concord it is, in summer, from four to fifteen feet deep, and from one hundred to three hundred feet wide, but in the spring freshets, when it overflows its banks, it is in some places nearly a mile wide. Between Sudbury and Wayland the meadows acquire their greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they form a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by numerous gulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, between these towns, is the largest expanse, and when the wind blows freshly in a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and sober billows or regular swells, skirted as it is in the distance with alder swamps and smoke like maples, it looks like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting for a landsman to row or sail over... Continue reading book >>

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers By: Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

First Page:

A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS.

[page]

A WEEK

ON THE

CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS

By HENRY D. THOREAU,

AUTHOR OF "WALDEN," ETC.

[page]

Where'er thou sail'st who sailed with me, Though now thou climbest loftier mounts, And fairer rivers dost ascend, Be thou my Muse, my Brother .

[page]

I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore, By a lonely isle, by a far Azore, There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek, On the barren sands of a desolate creek.

[page]

I sailed up a river with a pleasant wind, New lands, new people, and new thoughts to find; Many fair reaches and headlands appeared, And many dangers were there to be feared; But when I remember where I have been, And the fair landscapes that I have seen, ^Thou^ seemest the only permanent shore, The cape never rounded, nor wandered o'er.

[page]

Fluminaque obliquis cinxit declivia ripis; Quae, diversa locis, partim sorbentur ab ipsa; In mare perveniunt partim, campoque recepta Liberioris aquae, pro ripis litora pulsant. ^Ovid^, Met. I. 39

He confined the rivers within their sloping banks, Which in different places are part absorbed by the earth, Part reach the sea, and being received within the plain Of its freer waters, beat the shore for banks.

[page]

CONCORD RIVER.

"Beneath low hills, in the broad interval Through which at will our Indian rivulet Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, Here, in pine houses, built of new fallen trees, Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell."

^Emerson^.

The Musketaquid, or Grass ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilized history, until the fame of its grassy meadows and its fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of ^Concord^ from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have been commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peaceable lives on its banks. To an extinct race it was grass ground, where they hunted and fished, and it is still perennial grass ground to Concord farmers, who own the Great Meadows, and get the hay from year to year. "One branch of it," according to the historian of Concord, for I love to quote so good authority, "rises in the south part of Hopkinton, and another from a pond and a large cedar swamp in Westborough," and flowing between Hopkinton and Southborough, through Framingham, and between Sudbury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called Sudbury River, it enters Concord at the south part of the town, and after receiving the North or Assabeth River, which has its source a little farther to the north and west, goes out at the northeast angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle, and through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack at Lowell. In Concord it is, in summer, from four to fifteen feet deep, and from one hundred to three hundred feet wide, but in the spring freshets, when it overflows its banks, it is in some places nearly a mile wide. Between Sudbury and Wayland the meadows acquire their greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they form a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by numerous gulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, between these towns, is the largest expanse, and when the wind blows freshly in a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and sober billows or regular swells, skirted as it is in the distance with alder swamps and smoke like maples, it looks like a smaller Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting for a landsman to row or sail over... Continue reading book >>

Genres for this book
History
Travel

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