THE LAND OP BLACKBERRIES. 
133 
What is mankind, 
But like thy wandering?—Time 
Leads mortals through the maze of life, 
And thousands hopeful climb. 
A sudden blast— 
Then what of hope remains? 
Beauty full soon by sickness falls* 
And pleasures die in pains. 
But fruit succeeds— 
Thou ripenest by the sky; 
May human hearts bear fruits of peace 
Before in earth they lie.” 
August 19, 1827. 
Well, with childhood's rosy memories, with antique 
legends and histories, ranging from that earliest age when 
men fed. upon the simplest productions of the ground, 
when— 
a Content with food which Nature freely bred, 
On wildings and on strawberries they fed ; 
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest, 
And falling acorns furnished out a feast,”* 
down to Bosalind and the Children in the Wood, 
together with no end of uses in medicine and the arts, 
and that grandest of all uses, the making of conserves, 
preserves, tarts, pies, and puddings, and mingled with 
damsons, the richest syrup in the catalogue of modern 
confectionary, we say again,—Heaven bless the brambles, 
and all cheer to the Land of Blackberries ! 
From the silent wood, by a road to the left, we passed 
into a picturesque region of farm-houses and ancient 
Dryden’s “ Virgil.’ 
