182 WILD FLOWERS. 



fair stream, ho\v they hang in the most ver- 

 dant and luxuriant masses of foliage ! What a 

 soft, hazy, twilight floats about them ! What a 

 slumberous calm rests upon them ! Slumberous 

 did I say ? no, it is not slumberous ; it has nothing 

 of sleep in its profound repose. It is the depth 

 of a contemplative trance ; as if every tree were 

 a living, thinking spirit, lost in the vastness of 

 some absorbing thought. It is the hush of a 

 dream-land ; the motionless majesty of an en- 

 chanted forest, bearing the spell of an irrefrag- 

 able silence." Pause here a moment, while 

 we repeat a few lines, which this idea has 

 brought to our memory ; we have but to change 

 the time from evening to night, and it will be 

 exactly applicable : 



" Old trees by night are like men in thought, 

 By poetry to silence wrought ; 

 They stand so still, and they look so wise, 

 With folded arms, and half shut eyes, 

 More shadowy than the shade they cast 

 When the wan moonlight on the river passed." 



F. W. FABER. 



And now to continue our examinanon of the 

 beauties of the prospect before us : " See over 



