Sages of Concord #54: That Devilish Iron Horse

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The Boiling spring is turned into a tank for the Iron Horse to drink at, and the Walden Woods have been cut and dried for his fodder. That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending whinner (sic) is heard throughout the town, has defiled the Boiling Spring with his feet and drunk it up, and browsed off all the wood around the pond. . . He robs the country babies of milk, with the breath of his nostrils polluting the air. That Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, insidiously introduced by mercenary Greeks. With the scream of a hawk he beats the bush for men, the man-harrier, and carries them to his infernal home by thousands for his progeny. Where is the country's champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him at the Deep Cut and throw a victorious and avenging lance against this bloated pest?

from the Journal of HD Thoreau, June 17, 1853