FLOWERS OF THOUGHT. 
79 
opening spring looked black and barren, till towards 
the end of summer, when it was clothed everywhere 
with the rich carpet of crimson and purple heather, 
looking from the distance as if a sunshine, not of 
earth, had come down and bathed the whole moun¬ 
tain steep in subdued and rosy light. The Heath 
recalls scenes of solitude and of silence — vast plains 
of immeasuiable extent, where only the wild bird 
flaps its wings—spaces which when the sun has 
traversed across, the day is ended, and upon the 
wide outstretched plains you seethe night descend ; 
it hiings before the eye still out-of-the-way scenes, 
that go elbowing in where mighty woods meet to¬ 
gether, where the bramble trails, and the black¬ 
thorn grows, and the red fox sits before the shadow 
of the steep bank, eyeing her young cubs as they 
play together amongst the crimson Heath-bells,— 
spots where lovers might sit and sigh away their 
souls in each other s arms, without being disturbed 
by even the foot of the solitary hunter; where the 
light-footed deer would pace slowly along in his 
heathery fastness, then bound off in a moment, with 
all the fleetness of the wind, when he saw the form 
of man intruding upon his forest habitation,—places 
where the spotted snake basks securely at the foot 
of the antique oak, while the long-tailed martin 
pursues its prey among the gnarled and moss- 
covered branches overhead,—where the little lizard 
