IP 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
of the Last Enemy—sweeps it down, it scents the air 
for miles with the sweetest perfume ever breathed by 
man ? If only for its fresh green hue, let the dreamer 
love it, let him lie thereon— 
“ Vnder ye curtaine of ye greenwoode shade, 
Beside ye brooke vpod ve velvet gras.” 
Godfrey of Boulougne, B. x., s. 64. 
And if thou, 0 reader, hast any nobler hope imprisoned 
in thy heart than that of cooking partridges, or measur¬ 
ing tape; if thou hast not exchanged the Druid's harp 
for bell-metal, nor suffered thy heroism to sink into 
hypocrisy, go out into the green wilderness, lie down 
upon the cushion of the grass, and pillow thy head upon 
its virgin beauty. Then shall the songs of the golden 
age be warbled in thine ear; then shall the spirit of love 
sweep thy heart-strings, to awaken the melodies of the 
Empyrean within thee ; and a heritage of eternal beauty 
shall be thine, in the place of the fleshless fancies which 
now allure thee. Stay not here, creating dusty heavens, 
from which, like a wild beast, thou shalt be thrust here¬ 
after, but go out free and glad, and commune with the 
grass, and listen to its stories of the ages. Look back 
at the past, and learn the lesson of its faded peoples and 
crumbled empires; learn the ephemeral fleetness of 
human things, and the grand supremacy of Nature. 
The temples of the Sun, where eastern multitudes knelt 
in worship, have sunk down into white and ghastly ruins, 
and the grasses wave over their broken sculptures. The 
mighty caves of India, where darkness and mystery 
aided in the fearful work of bloody superstitions, are 
