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"The Assabet". Autograph manuscript.
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All 12 stanzas of his poem "The Assabet", which he also entered in his "Journal" (and dated 18 July 1839). Composed two days before Ellen Sewall's arrival, "The Assabet" was probably written with Ellen's brother Edmund in mind, though it seems to be entirely appropriate for Thoreau's time with Ellen during her visit, with its images of a boat trip. (The images are also an early treatment of Thoreau's Concord-Merrimack boat trip undertaken in August and September 1839 with his brother John, which he described in "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers".) This is the actual poem Thoreau sent to Ellen Sewall in Scituate in the late summer of 1839. Interestingly, the present poem constitutes the first poem Henry David Thoreau gave to Ellen Sewall. In 1840, Thoreau proposed to Ellen. Her father, a Unitarian minister, found Thoreau to be a rabble-rouser with his antislavery and freethinking ideas. He instructed his daughter to reject the offer. Thoreau never married. - "Up this pleasant stream let's row | For the livelong summer's day, | Sprinkling foam where'er we go, | In weather as white as driven snow; | Ply the oars, away! away! || Now we glide along the shore, | Plucking lillies as we go, | While the yellow sanded floor | Doggedly resists the oar, | Like some turtle, dull and slow. || Now we stem the middle tide, | Ploughing through the deepest soil, | Ridges pile on either side, | While we through the furrow glide, | Reaping bubbles for our toil. || Dew before and drought behind, | Onward all doth seem to fly, | Naught contents the eager mind, | Only rapids now are kind, | Forward are the earth and sky. || Sudden music strikes the ear | Leaking out from yonder bank | Fit such voyageurs to cheer - | Sure there must be fairies [naiads] here, | Who have kindly played this prank [...]". - Marginal waterstaining and fraying repaired; full transcription available on request.