78 UNDER THE TREES. 



fellowship with the hour and the scene. x ;The clear, 

 bracing air, the rustling of leaves slowly sifting 

 down through the lower branches, the solemn 

 quietude, filled the morning with a deep joy that 

 touched the very sources of life, and made them 

 sweet in every thought and emotion. It was like a 

 new beginning in the old, old story of time ; the 

 stains of ancient wrong, the blights of sorrow, the 

 wrecks of hope, were gone ; sweet with the untrod 

 den freshness of a new day lay the earth, and 

 looked up to the heavens with a gaze as pure and 

 calm as their own. Somehow all life seemed sub 

 limated in that golden sunshine ;( the grosser 

 elements had vanished, the material had become 

 the transparent medium of the spiritual, the dis 

 cords had blended into harmony, and one would 

 have heard without surprise the faint, far song of 

 the stars. The whole world was one vast articulate 

 poem, and human life added its own strain of pene 

 trating sweetness. &amp;lt; At last, after all these years of 

 struggle and failure, one was really living ! 



\The road, slowly ascending the long wooded 

 slope, wound its way through the forest until it 

 brought me to the mountain path which climbs, 

 with many a halt and pause, to the very summit. 

 Dense foliage overshadows it, a little thinner now 

 that the hand of autumn has begun to disrobe the 

 trees. Great rocks often lie in the course of the 

 path and send it in a narrow curve around them. 

 Sometimes one comes upon a bold ascent up the 



