Lo! what a beauteous sight! A herd of deer reposing like a family of wood-sprites, near yonder clump of young maples! There are three bucks, five does, and two lovely spotted fawns. Upon that decayed “stump” beyond, a solitary American nightingale is resting. It is my favorite bird. Would that I knew the cause of its complainings and chastisement, for every now and then it utters forth the cry, “Why whip poor Will?”
What silver rays are those darting down through the leafy bough? The moon! the moon! High in the heaven she sails, in queenly beauty. The very heart of the forest is not beyond her vivifying influence. Festoons of creeping plants hang from the surrounding limbs; and the ivy and grape-vine have twined themselves so closely around that ash, as entirely to hide from view the bark of the trunk. I thrust my hand against a bush, and a thousand dew-drops fall to the earth, glittering in the moonbeams. If my lady-love were with me, what a gorgeous wreath could I now weave for her beautiful brow out of the purple and scarlet iris, the blue larkspur, the moccason-flower, the crimson and green lichen, and other mosses, flowers, and vines, too delicate to have a name!
A gentle breeze is stirring. The tops of the trees are moving to and fro with the strong but gentle motion of a ground-swell. Soothing is the music of the leaves; they seem to murmur with excess of joy. Another sound echoes through the listening wilderness. It is but a scuffle between a panther and bear. Let them growl and fight; who cares? How like two hot-headed politicians they seem!
Again are the trees becoming thinner, and my steps are tending downward. The green-sward I press is without a single stick or bramble. Here I am upon the brink of a little lake of the very purest water! The breeze has spent its force, and every thing is still. It is “the bridal hour of the earth and sky!” What a perfect mirror is this liquid element! The counterpart of two willows, a grass-grown rock, tall reeds, and beyond all, a row of slender elms, and a lightning-shivered pine, are distinctly seen, pointing downward, downward to the moon and stars, in the cerulean void beneath. And in yon deep shadow a flock of ducks are floating silently, amid the sweet perfume of the wild lotus and white water-lily, which are growing near. One or two have wandered out into the lake, making no ripple, but moving as if lured away by the glossy loveliness of their shadows. The same mysterious influence which has brought me thus far, will transport me to the opposite shore.
I am there! yet still my course is “onward.” I am come to a little lawn, so smooth and beautiful that it seems a fit play-ground for the fairies. Perhaps it is here the water-spirits and wood-nymphs are wont to meet, to revel and rejoice at midnight, “the dawn of the fairy day.”
What sound is that!—so like the far-off tones of a hundred musical instruments, faintly murmuring? Ah! I thought so. Here they are:
“They come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly,
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,