JUNE. 149 



but our youth and our spring have gone by; and though 

 we have the enjoyment of all we anticipated, yet with 

 the fruition hope begins to languish, for in the present 

 exists the fulness of our joys. The flowery treasures, 

 foretokened by the first blue violet, are blooming around 

 us; the melodious concert, to which the little song-spar- 

 row warbled a sweet prelude in March, is now swelling 

 from a full band of songsters, and the sweet summer 

 climate that was harbored by an occasional south-wind 

 has arrived. But there is sadness in fruition. With all 

 these voluptuous gales and woodland minstrelsies, we 

 cannot help wishing for a renewal of those feelings with 

 which we greeted the first early flower and listened to 

 the song of the earliest returning bird. 



Nature has thus nearly equalized our happiness in 

 every season. When our actual joys are least abundant, 

 fancy is near at hand, to supply us with the visions of 

 those pleasures of which we cannot enjoy the substance ; 

 filling our souls in spring with the hope of the future, 

 comforting us in autumn with the memory of the past, 

 and amusing us in winter with a tranquil retrospection 

 of the whole year and the pleasant watching for the 

 dawn of another spring. 



A total change has taken place in the aspect of the 

 woods since the middle of the last month. The light, 

 yellowish green of the willows and thorns, the purple 

 of the sumach, and the various hues of other sprouting 

 foliage have ripened into a dark uniform verdure. The 

 grass, as it waves in the meadows, gleams like the bil- 

 lows of the ocean; and the glossy surfaces of the ripe 

 leaves of the trees, as they tremble in the wind, glitter 

 like millions of imperfect mirrors in the light of the sun. 

 The petals of the fading blossoms are flying in all direc- 

 tions, as they are scattered by the fluttering gales, and 

 cover, like flakes of snow, the surface of the orchards. 



