10 Woodpatlis. 



In these fern-embroidered aisles, and under these foliated arches, where 

 the birds have warbled ever since the morning-stars sang together, — here 

 will we linger when we would worship in Nature's sanctuary, and draw 

 frcm her an inspiration making the scenes of earth as delightful as those 

 of romance. We will seek the wood-haunts of the Naiad, where she sits 

 by her fountain, distributing her favors to herb, tree, and flower ; and, among 

 these dripping dells, we will greet her as the mother of dews. We will 

 drink of her waters with the thrush and the wood-pigeon, and bear home 

 baptismal drops from her well in the leaf-cups of the sarracenia, and in- 

 cense from her altar in branches of eglantine and sweet-fern. We will sit 

 under these wide-spreading oaks, and take our repast with the squirrel, 

 while from the tall tree-top he watches our motions. 



We pass, as it were in a happy dream, through vistas of tall trees, form- 

 ing with their foliage and the sky a netted canopy of green and blue, where 

 delicate aerial voices of mingled chirping and song inspire every wanderer 

 with their own cheerfulness. Sometimes there is a stillness almost sublime : 

 in a moment are awakened certain musical and mysterious sounds, that fill 

 the mind with dim conceptions of something beautiful still unseen and 

 unknown ; then a confusion of voices without discord, — a universal hum 

 so soft and so melodious, that every bird that sings may be distinctly heard 

 above it, and his voice is made sweeter by this harmonious din. As we 

 view the surface of some still water, embossed with the reflection of em- 

 bowering shrubbery and of the herbage that fringes the border, the foun- 

 tain seems to look upon us with distinct vision, and to know us. Suddenly 

 we are under the open sky : we have been led out of the wood into the 

 retreat of the hare, who is startled from her repose by our unexpected 

 intrusion. 



O happy path to blisses unknown in the outer world ! guide to joys that 

 revellers cannot feel, nor the ambitious know ! Wherever there is gladness 

 or beauty, or melody of birds and fountains, or little dells full of roses and 

 honeysuckles, or dripping rocks green with velvet mosses and variegated 

 lichens, — to all, this woodpath points the way ; now safe through copses of 

 tangled green-brier and clematis ; through borders of roses, unshorn by 

 art, and not planted by man ; through beds of raspberries intermingled 

 with ferns, and thickets of tremulous aspens interwoven with sunshine ; 



