Lily-Ponds. 25 



uted around the pond, and filled the space between the ground and the 

 lower branches with an undergrowth of sweet-scented shrubs ; so that, from 

 the bosom of the waters, the boatman seems to be in an enchanted place, 

 and might fancy himself in the gardens of the Hesperides. 



Nature seems to have the same affection for a lily-pond as for the old 

 waysides in the country which have not been trampled by a too-frequent 

 concourse of travellers ; and, on the borders of each, she groups her vege- 

 tation in the same wild and fanciful dispositions as we observe in the forms 

 of clouds. Sometimes the pond is elongated at certain points into a shal- 

 low, and beauty gives place to weirdness and desolation. In these dank 

 inlets. Nature creates many grotesque forms of vegetation : giant rushes 

 and Typha raise their spears, half buried in water ; and the tupelo-tree, by 

 its twisted and fantastic growth, makes the scenery still more capricious. 

 Here variety and uniformity, wildness and grace, are blended in a charming 

 manner, which is unattainable by art. I speak of those ponds that remain 

 undisturbed by the operations of men ; having neither been made a location 

 for ice-houses, nor modified to suit the taste of the owner of some adjoining 

 villa. I speak of them only as they came from the hand of Nature in all 

 their primitive wildness. 



These beautiful ponds are fast becoming appropriated by dealers in ice, 

 or spoiled by improvers who substitute the beauty of cultivation for 

 that of spontaneity, and destroy most effectually their peculiar and de- 

 lightful features. But there are thousands of them still quietly sleeping in 

 the forest, unshorn of their original attractions. On the boundaries of 

 these virgin waters. Nature is still the presiding deity ; and the nymphs 

 that do homage to her have not been exiled from their arbors. There the 

 Rhodora still harbingers the summer, while shedding its rosy light in 

 tufted profusion upon the shore ; and the Small Kalmia, with more retiring 

 habits and deeper blushing tints, attends her, and wreathes her brows with 

 crimson. The rose, that has dwelt here ever since the hills were raised 

 above the plain, glows with the " purple light of love," of which it is the 

 emblem ; and the mountain-laurel hangs its evergreen boughs over the outer 

 portals and in the inner sanctuary of this, her temple and her paradise. 



During all the season, there is not a day when the plaintive song of the 

 Veery may not be heard from the adjoining woods, from the time of the 



