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Margaret Fuller
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CHAPTER IV. |
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CHICAGO AGAIN. |
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Chicago had become interesting to me now, that I knew it as the portal to so fair a scene. I had become interested in the land, in the people, and looked sorrowfully on the take on which I must soon embark, to leave behind what I had just begun to enjoy. Now was the time to see the lake. The July moon was near its full, and night after night it rose in a cloudless sky above this majestic sea. The heat was excessive, so that there was no enjoyment of life, except in the night, but then the air was of that delicious temperature, worthy of orange groves. However, they were not wanted; —nothing was, as that full light fell on the faintly rippling waters which then seemed boundless. A poem received shortly after, from a friend in Massachusetts, seemed to say that the July moon shone there not less splendid, and may claim insertion here. 71
TRIFORMIS.
So pure her forehead's dazzling white,
I gazed at her, as at the moon,
II.
Again we met. O joyful meeting!
So full-orbed Cynthia walks the skies,
III.
O fair, but fickle lady-moon,
Thou music of my boyhood's hour!
Now that I am borrowing, I will also give a letter received at this
time, and extracts from others from an earlier traveller, and in a
different region of the country from that I saw, which, I think, in
different ways, admirably descriptive of the country.
"And you, too, love the Prairies, flying voyager of a summer hour; but
I have only there owned the wild forest, the wide-spread meadows; there
only built my house, and seen the livelong day the thoughtful shadows of
the great clouds color, with all-transient browns, the untrampled floor of
grass; there has Spring pranked the long smooth reaches with
those golden flowers, whereby became the fields a sea too golden to
o'erlast the heats. Yes! and with many a yellow bell she gilded our
unbounded path, that sank in the light swells of the varied surface,
skirted the untilled barrens, nor shunned the steep banks of rivers
darting merrily on. There has the white snow frolicsomely strown itself,
till all that vast, outstretched distance glittered like a mirror in which
only the heavens were reflected, and among these drifts our steps have
been curbed. Ah! many days of precious weather are on the Prairies!
"You have then found, after many a weary hour, when Time has locked
your temples as in a circle of heated metal, some cool, sweet,
swift-gliding moments, the iron ring of necessity ungirt, and the fevered
pulses at rest. You have also found this where fresh nature suffers no
ravage, amid those bowers of wild-wood, those dream-like, bee-sung,
murmuring and musical plains, swimming under their hazy distances, as if
there, in that warm and deep back ground, stood the fairy castle of our
hopes, with its fountains, its pictures, its many mystical figures in
repose. Ever could we rove over those sunny distances, breathing that
modulated wind, eyeing those so well-blended, imaginative, yet thoughtful
surfaces and above us wide—wide a horizon effortless and superb as a
young divinity.
"I was a prisoner where you glide, the summer's pensioned guest, and
my chains were the past and the future, darkness and blowing sand. There,
very. weary, I received from the distance a sweet emblem of an
incorruptible, lofty and pervasive nature, but
7 was I less weary? I was a prisoner, and you, plains, were my prison
bars.
"Yet never, O never, beautiful plains, had I any feeling for you but
profoundest gratitude, for indeed ye are only fair, grand and majestic,
while I had scarcely a right there. Now, ye stand in that past day,
grateful images of unshattered repose, simple in your tranquillity, strong
in your self-possession, yet ever musical and springing as the footsteps
of a child.
"Ah! that to some poet, whose lyre had never lost a string, to whom
mortality, kinder than is her custom, had vouchsafed a day whose down had
been untouched, — that to him these plains might enter, and flow
forth in airy song. And you, forests, under whose symmetrical shields of
dark green the colors of the fawns move, like the waters of the river
under its spears,- its cimeters of flag, where, in gleaming circles of
steel, the breasts of the wood-pigeons flash in the playful sunbeam, and
many sounds, many notes of no earthly music, come over the well-relieved
glades, — should not your depth pass into that poet's heart,— in
your depths should he not fuse his own?"
The other letters show the painter's eye, as this the poet's heart.
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"Springfield, Illinois, May 20, 1840. |
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"Yesterday morning I left Griggsville, my knapsack at my back, pursued my journey all day on foot, and found so new and great delight in this charming country, that I must needs tell you about it. Do you remember our saying once, that we never found 75 the trees tall enough, the fields green enough. Well, the trees are for once tall, and fair to look upon, and one unvarying carpet of the tenderest green covers these marvellous fields, that spread out their smooth sod for miles and miles, till they even reach the horizon. But, to begin my day's journey. Griggsville is situated on the west side of the Illinois river, on a high prairie; between it and the river is a long range of bluffs which reaches a hundred miles north and south, then a wide river bottom, and then the river. It was a mild, showery morning, and I directed my steps toward the bluffs. They are covered with forest, not like our forests, tangled and impassable, but where the trees stand fair and apart from one another, so that you might ride every where about on horseback, and the tops of the hills are generally bald, and covered with green turf, like our pastures. Indeed, the whole country reminds me perpetually of one that has been carefully cultvated by a civilized people, who had been suddenly removed from the earth, with all the works of their hands, and the land given again into nature's keeping. The solitudes are not savage; they have not that dreary, stony loneliness that used to affect me in our own country; they never repel; there are no lonely heights, no isolated spots, but all is gentle, mild, inviting, — all is accessible. In following this winding, hilly road for four or five miles, I think I counted at least a dozen new kinds of wild flowers, not timid, retiring little plants like ours, but bold flowers of rich colors, covering the ground in abundance. One very common flower resembles our cardinal 76 flower, though not of so deep a color, another is very like rocket or
phlox, but smaller and of various colors, white, blue and purple.
Beautiful white lupines I find too, violets white and purple. The vines
and parasites are magnificent. I followed on this road till I came to the
prairie which skirts the river, and this, of all the beauties of this
region, is the most peculiar and wonderful. Imagine a vast and
gently-swelling pasture of the brightest green grass, stretching away kern
you on every side, behind, toward these hills I have described, in all
other directions, to a belt of tall trees, all growing up with noble
proportions, from the generous soil. It is an unimagined picture of
abundance and peace. Somewhere about, you are sure to see a huge herd. of
cattle, often white, and generally brightly marked, grazing. All looks
like the work of man's hand, but you see no vestige of man, save perhaps
an almost imperceptible hut ou the edge of the prairie. Reaching the
river, I ferried myself across, and then crossed over to take the
Jacksonville railroad, but, finding there was no train, passed the night
at a farm house. And here may find its place this converse between the
solitary old man and the young traveller.
SOLITARY.
My son, with weariness thou seemest spent,
TRAVELLER.
Oh rather, father, let me ask of thee
SOLITARY.
Dreams all, my son. Yes, even so I dreamed,
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7*
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And even so was thwarted. You must learn
TRAVELLER.
Oh who can say
That night the young man rested with the old,
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