GRASS AND GREEN THINGS. 3 



and human life more real. The hunter with his brown visage ; the 

 poet with his softened smile; the laughing infant and the grey old 

 man, all feel the renovated touch of a life made of enchantments when 

 they go into the world of birch-trees and knotty boles, and black- 

 birds and brown uplands, and all draw thence an inspiration more 

 wealthy than heart can fully feel, or mind can fairly reckon. 



The story of the grass is the story of the world. Ere the creatures 

 of the flood and field existed, the earth brought forth grass and herbs, 

 so that when the earth should " bring forth the living creature after 

 his kind, cattle and creeping thing," they should find sustenance and 

 enjoyment; and man, waking up from chaos at the will of the Om- 

 nipotent, should find himself in a home of greenness, with a soft 

 carpet for his feet, a refreshing verdure to gladden his eye, and a 

 living beauty to imbue his heart with holiness and peace. Well ! 

 upon the green turf he worshipped his God at sunrise, and upon 

 the grassy ground he slept at nightfall ; and when that greatest of his 

 benedictions came — a dear partner for his life, and a companion to 

 make complete the .sweetness of his hours — it was on the green grass 

 they walked together, singing hymns of joy, and mingling their 

 affections with the happiness of the creatures. 



— — — Raised of grassy turf 

 Their table was, and mossy seats had round. 



Paradise Lost. 



The leafy bowers were their mansions of beauty, and the grass made 

 green the pathway to their temple of love. 



Over the wide world the grass has no limits ; it shoots up sharp 

 and wiry on the dark moorland, that the red deer may bound over it 

 without crushing its sprays, and without wakening the echoes with his 

 footfall. It bends in luxuriant masses over the broad stream, and 

 looks down into the pebbly depths, like Narcissus, at its own shadow ; 

 it hides away in the silent glens and nooks of the old forests, and 

 waves its silken tassels in the dreamy light, where the flowers hold 

 carnivals of fragrance, and the hollow trees sing the dirges of their 

 youth ; it spreads wide sheets of swelling verdure over thousands of 

 miles in the swamps of the West ; it shoots up in the sunny climates 

 of the East to the stately height of forty or sixty feet,* and putting 



* The bamboo and sugar-cane are both grasses. 

 B 2 



