THE HAPPY VALLEY 469 



How oft in pensive or in prayerful mood, 



My fancy turns to that high solitude, 

 Above its mystic blue-green depths to brood. 



And as the lonely crag above it towers, 



Its hoar brow chapleted with autumn flowers, 

 So memory wreathes those unforgotten hours !" 



The murmur of the stream is in my ear as I 

 write, the towering cliff on its farther side holds 

 my eyes, while at this instant a humming bird 

 hovers among the flowering vines outside the 

 opened window. Now my gaze wanders west- 

 ward across the lawn, above the green of the near- 

 by forest, to the bluish summit of the mountain 

 beyond, and I realize why our friends exclaim 

 with one voice: 



"No wonder you call it 'the Happy Valley P 

 Few of them know that we never so christened 

 it, for it named itself. The words rose to the 

 lips of so many that we came to feel that the 

 name belonged, and so it stayed. The Spirit 

 of the Valley gives to those who seek it the 

 serenity of sages and the hearts of little children. 



