Beautiful Spirit! such hast been, and is, and will still be thy task. Over the earth thou floatest, and man, be he in gloom or gladness, aspiring or desponding, hails thee with rejoicing; and even as the pale flowers drooping beneath the noontide heat, and the parched and languishing earth, so does he turn to thee for coolness and repose. Beautiful Spirit! thou hast sinned and been forgiven—therefore we rest on thee!
Recollections of a Rambler.
It was on a beautiful morning, in quite the beginning of May, that, leaving the Globe Hotel, on the Beacon Hill, Exmouth, I strolled forth at a very early hour, determining to ramble wherever chance might lead. There was no fear of my missing any particularly lovely spot in following this determination. The very watering-places combine all the charms of sea and country to an extent peculiar to this lovely county. Ten minutes suffice to bear the wanderer to such seeming solitude of hill and dale, and glen and wood—will scatter around him such a profusion of ever-varying yet ever beautiful scenery, that it is difficult to believe that all those artificial luxuries and pleasures necessary to the trifler and the fashionest, would we seek them, are close at hand.
Every season has its own charm in England. Even winter, in its stern, rude aspect, its brawling voice of winds and storms, has, in the deep, still haunts of nature, its own peculiar beauty. Spring, with its young, fresh joyousness, its sparkling glory of earth and sky—its gushing atmosphere; for, as the breeze comes laughing and dancing along, we can give it no other term. Summer, with its still and deeper feeling, as if the dancing light and glittering love of the youthful year had sobered into a being deeper, stronger, more fervid and intense. Then autumn, decking decay with such bright beauty, shedding a parting halo on the fading year; concentrating all of loveliness in that sweet, dreamy pensiveness, which, while it lingers almost mournfully on earth’s parting glories, looks through their passing light into their renovated being, reading in the death and resurrection of nature the spirit’s immortality.
One charm, indeed, spring possesses beyond those of the other seasons; it is, that almost every hour of the day is equally delicious; in the morning, noon, afternoon, or evening, we may come forth and make acquaintance with her in every variety of aspect, each one as lovely as the other. Evening indeed is the hour of that delicious musing which, in the very blessedness of the PRESENT, unconsciously recalls the loveliest images of the PAST, and adumbrates the FUTURE, by the thrilling whisper of our immortal goal. It is then that, as Wordsworth says—
“We are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul.”
But these are not the sensations of the morning; then life is infused with the PRESENT alone. We can neither recall, nor think, nor hope; we do but believe, and love, and feel, conscious only of the blessing of Existence, of the omnipotence of Love!