SUMMER PICTURES, 
299 
whence they throw rich perfumes upon the air, to tell 
how sweet was the sunny current of their lives, and sug¬ 
gest the fancy that their spirits still hover above the 
spots which their beauty had sanctified. 
Now, down the steep hill-side into the old wood, and 
feel the mystery which always hangs about these ancient 
trees, and the thick underwood which gathers at their feet. 
“ How sweet the shade of this magnificent wood! 
The gnarled oaks, upon whose hoary, 
Tempest-stricken brows, Old Time 
Has chronicled a thousand years.” 
Millions of flowers grow in these dark untrodden 
solitudes; thousands of birds have made their homes 
amid these leafy coverts; innumerable strange beasts 
and reptiles crawl and prowl among the moist leaves, 
which lie rotting in fragrant masses where the under¬ 
wood forms an impassable jungle, or burrow under the 
hollow trees, or bask beside the hidden water-courses, or 
on the great mossy branches of the trees which have 
been hurled down by winter storms, and have been since 
overgrown by rank weeds and flowers, which strive from 
year to year to hide their hoary ruin and decrepitude. 
The twilight gloom seems to enter one's very heart, as 
we gaze upon the dim shadowy grandeur of these green 
and mysterious woods, which have grown old and patri¬ 
archal in the light and darkness, the sunshine and the 
glooms, of long, long centuries. But there is no time 
to think of the Druids and the ancient Britons, and w r e 
must find our way through deep dells where the foliage 
darkens, and where gnarled and withered stems stretch 
upward beseechingly, like troubled souls in purgatory. 
