JUNE. 165 



harmony. It is luxury to stand beneath the forest 

 side, when all is still and basking at noon ; and to 

 see the landscape suddenly darken, the black and 

 tumultuous clouds assemble as at a signal ; to hear 

 the awful thunder crash upon the listening ear ; and 

 then, to mark the glorious bow rise on the lurid rear 

 of the tempest, the sun laugh jocundly abroad, and 



Every bathed leaf and blossom fair 

 Pour out its soul to the delicious air. 



It is luxury to haunt the gardens of old-fashioned 

 houses in the morning, when the bees are flitting 

 forth with a rejoicing hum; or at eve, when the 

 honeysuckle and sweetbriar mingle their spirit with 

 the breeze. It is luxury to plunge into the cool river ; 

 and, if ever we are tempted to turn anglers, it must 

 be now. To steal away into a quiet valley, by a 

 winding stream, buried, completely buried, in fresh 

 grass ; the foamlike flow r ers of the meadow-sweet, 

 the crimson loose-strife, and the large blue geranium 

 nodding beside us ; the dragonfly, the ephemera, 

 the kingfisher glancing to and fro ; the trees above 

 casting their flickering shadows on the stream ; and 

 one of our ten thousand volumes of delightful litera- 

 ture in our pockets, then indeed might one be a most 

 patient angler though taking not a single fin. What 

 luxurious images would there float through the 

 mind ! Gray could form no idea of heaven supe- 

 rior to laying on a sofa, and reading novels ; but it 

 is in the flowery lap of June that we can best climb 



Up to the sunshine of uncumbered ease. 



