I would that thou wert here to bless,
As I do now, the love and care,
That, with such wealth of loveliness,
Have made life's journeying-land so fair.
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I have taken several enormous rides round Boston, and am more and more delighted with its environs, which are now in full flush of blossoming, as sweet, and fresh, and lovely as any thing can be. On Saturday, rode to the Blue Hills, a distance of upwards of twelve miles. The roads round this place are almost as good as roads in England, and the country altogether reminds me of that dear little land.[97] These Blue Hills were, a few years ago, a wilderness of forest—the favourite resort of rattlesnakes; but the trees have been partly cleared, and though 'tis still a wild desolate region, clothed with firs, and uncheered by a human habitation, its more savage tenants have disappeared with the thick coverts in which they nestled, and we rode to the summit of the highest hill without seeing any thing in the shape of Eve's enemy. At the top, by the by, we did find some species of building in decay and ruin. Whoever perched himself up there had no mind to be overlooked, and must have been fond of fresh air. The view from the mountain is magnificent, yet I do not believe the elevation to be very extraordinary; although, as I looked down, it seemed to me as though the world was stretched at my feet; and I thought of the temptation of our Saviour. The various villages, with their blossoming orchards, looked like patches of a snow-scene; the river wound, like a silver snake, all round the fields; the little lakes lay diminished to drops of bright blue light; and the lesser mountains rose below us like the waves of a dark sea. The whole was strange and awful to me—the savage loneliness of the place, its apparent remoteness from the earth, and its walkers, filled me with a solemn sensation. Had I been there alone, I do not know a place where I should sooner have expected to meet some of the wandering spirits of mid-air,—shapes, and sights, and beings of another order from those of the world, that lay like a map below me. The mountain itself is formed of granite, of which large slabs appeared through the turf and brushwood. I looked in vain for what I found in such abundance on the Portland hill, the sweet wild thyme. I thought I should find some of it among the stony rifts, where it loves to cling, but I was disappointed. Indeed, I met with a much more severe disappointment than that. The turf was thickly strewn with clumps of violets, the very same in form and colour as our own sweet wood violet. I stooped in an ecstasy to gather them, but found they were totally senseless—mere pretences of violets. A violet without fragrance! a wild one, too!—the thing's totally unnatural. I flung the little purple cheat away in a rage. I have since found cowslips with the same entire absence of fragrance. The heat and cold of this climate chill or wither every thing; and almost all the flowers which are most common and sweet, growing in the moist soil of England, seem reared with difficulty here, and lose their great fragrance, their soul, as it were, under the extreme influences of this sky.[98] There were many wild things growing on this mountain, that for beauty, and delicacy of form and colour, would have found honourable place in our conservatories; but they had not the slightest perfume, and I took no delight in them. A scentless flower is a monster; and though I acknowledge with due admiration the pale beauty of that queen of flowers, the camelia, I never see it in its cold pearl-like pride of bloom, that it does not strike me like a fine lady—an artificial creature, fair indeed to behold, but without the very property of a flower—sweetness. Oh, the lilies of the valley,—the primroses,—the violets,—the sweet, sweet hawthorn,—the fresh fragrant blush rose,—the purple lilac bloom,—the silver serynga,—the faint breathing hyacinths,—the golden cowslips, of a morning, at the close of May in England!—the fulness of sweetness that loads the temperate air, as it breathes over the fresh lawns of that flower garden!
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