MYSTERIES OF MEMORY. 



•' I saw or dreamed of such, — ^but let them go — 

 They came like truth, and disappeared like dream?, 

 And whatsoe'er they were, — are now but so." 



Childe Harold. 



The Summer — the joyous Summer ! who is there that, free to 

 behold the face of nature, can resist the influence of a glorious 

 day in the early summer, when the earth in its softest verdure 

 seems a gleaming emerald, veined with lapis-lazuli, as the bright 

 rivers wander by, dispensing freshness, and beauty, and salubrity 

 around ? When the thickets, the hedges, and orchards, the 

 gardens, the banks, and the waysides are ringing with the 

 harmony of unseen choristers, and the clouds themselves fleeting 

 over the hill tops, seem to echo the glad cadence. When nature 

 Similes in every feature, and displays but benevolence and love, 

 can the soul of man be wrapped in the austerities of sadness 

 and gloom ? Impossible ! unless there be something radically 

 wrong within his breast. As the sun opens the calix of the 

 flower, so does the aspect of creation expand the purest sympathies 

 of the heart; infancy gladdens in the fresh meadow, laughs and 

 exults at the sight of the grass, the daffodils, the hawthorn, the 

 bee, the butterfly, the lady-bird, and claps its little hands from 

 the impulses of a pleasure for which it cannot — and cares not to 

 — account. Youth feels a glow, an elasticity, a revelling of the 

 blood and a dancing of the heart as though sin and sorrow had no 

 footing in the world, and, filled with sweet sensations, it goes 

 forth wooing the brightest dreams of poetry. And age — yes, 

 "frosted age" itself, experiences a sort of new vitality; it throws 

 off* the burthen of years, buries for a time its solicitudes, its 

 apprehensions, its regrets, and its infirmities, and with kindling 

 eye and a mantling cheek— with a freer gait and a firmer step — 

 welcomes the smiling train of memory to dismiss them with a 

 peaceful abiding of the future, and a happy confidence in an 

 all-protecting Providence. From dwelling on the beautiful 

 scenes of life, it can in such moments, calmly and fearlessly, 

 and even with placidity, gaze on the "valley of the shadow of 

 death," and piercing through the gloom, catch the murmur of the 

 still waters, and the shades of the green pastures by which the 

 Divine shepherd shall lead his flock. •?&*** 



But all seasons have something sweet for memory, and winter 

 brings its pleasant phantasmagoria. Creeping upon the steps of 

 the autumn, it renders sea-coal fires, and air-tight window sashes, 

 soft carpets and shadowy sinumbras, admirable components of 



