WOOD SORREL. 81 



that world which is absent from the out- 

 ward. Memory still haunts that green and 

 wooded valley, with its sounding streamlet, 

 and song of birds answering one the other ; 

 and while thinking of the mossy well-head, 

 with its ferns and flowers, I would take up 

 the language of the muse of Keble, and 

 point out to those who love lone places, 

 cheered with mosses and wild flowers, 



" Lessons sweet of spring returning," 



with which the beautiful solitudes of Nature 

 are blended. For there ever breathes a soft- 

 ening and consoling influence from amid such 

 scenes, ministering, however feebly, to our 

 mental sorrows, and imparting, it may be, 

 a sacred calm and resignation to the bur- 

 dened and oppressed among hfe's pilgrims, 

 while it tends to exalt or to refine the re- 

 joicing spirit. 



Keble, perchance, has visited that spot. 



G 



