!^6 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



till at length, my sins confessed, my matins said, my soul re- 

 freshed, as I leave the temple inspired for the work of a new day, 

 I am led as though by an unseen hand to a bright spot where 

 the sunbeams penetrate the gloom through a window in the 

 pines, and I stand transfixed ! " What," do you ask, " a vision ?" 

 Yes. Look! yonder in the chancel, those snowy lilies hovering 

 among the ferns ! A vision ? Yes. What matters it that my 

 seraph assumed the material form which man has called " Cypri- 

 pedium ?" In the archetypal botany of the Infinite we know not 

 what may be its correspondence. 



" Not a natural flower can grow on earth 

 Without a flower upon the spiritual side, 

 Substantial, archetypal, all aglow 

 With blossoming causes not so far away 

 That we, whose spirit sense is somewhat cleared, 

 May not catch something of the bloom and breath." 



How many of my congenial spirits everywhere that chance to 

 read my page will have known with me the exaltation of mo- 

 ments such as this ! How readily will they pardon me if I 

 "paint the lily" in the hope of reawakening an experience 

 which, perchance, may have become obscured through the years, 

 but for which life has been the sweeter, the happier, and the 

 better! Such is the harvest of the wild garden divine fruits 

 not reckoned in the conservatory nor yet in the botany. 



As in the artificial garden we pass from parterre to parterre, 

 or to conservatory or shaded fernery, each with its appropriate 

 denizens, so in the wilds we find the worthier model, every condi- 

 tion of sod, of light, of shade finding its true expression. The 

 "forest ledge" has its own family, which the botanists well know. 

 The pine wood has its faithful broods ; the yielding loam, with 

 " soft brown silence carpeted," is figured with bloom and garland 

 easily numbered in anticipation. The beech woods have a rival 

 company. The hemlocks hold the darling of the mould, the 

 trailing arbutus, always with a numerous attendant complement. 

 The meadow- blooms that fall in the swath of the new- mown hay 



