without noticing this hint of professional employment, the poet turned away, and gave himself up to a sort of vague reverie, which he called thought. sometimes he watched the moon, pouring a silvery liquid on the clouds, through which it slowly melted till they became all bright; then he saw the same sweet radiance dancing on the leafy trees which rustled as if to shake it off, or sleeping on the high tops of hills, or hovering down in distant valleys, like the material of unshaped dreams; lastly, he looked into the spring, and there the light was mingling with the water. in its crystal bosom, too, beholding all heaven reflected there, he found an emblem of a pure and tranquil breast. he listened to that most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets, coming in full choir upon the wind, and fancied that, if moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that. finally, he took a draught at the shaker spring, and, as if it were the true castalia, was forthwith moved to compose a lyric, a farewell to his harp, which he swore should be its closing strain, the last verse that an ungrateful world should have from him. this effusion, with two or three other little pieces, subsequently written, he took the first opportunity to send, by one of the shaker brethren, to concord, where they were published in the new hampshire patriot.