Loveliest of God’s created things!
My soul to thee through life is given;
And when that soul takes upward wings,
I’ll search for thy bright form in heaven.
Richly doth the moon now kindle up the scene with her pure silver glory. How deliciously her delicate dreamy light rests upon the quiet fields, the motionless forests, and the slumbering lake. How sweet the harmony between heaven and earth. The sky is flooded with the rich radiance, quenching the stars, save one or two that sparkle near the orbed source of all this brightness. And on the lake is a broad path of splendor, gorgeous as the angel-trodden ladder witnessed by the patriarch in his dreams. Our little hollow is lit up with matchless brilliancy. It is absolutely filled with the moon’s smile. Let us examine some of the small effects of the light. There is a shifting, dazzling streak upon each ripple as it dances up—the side of yon pine, this way, is covered all over with bright tassels, whilst the other portion, except its dim outline, is lost in gloom. There is an edging of pearl woven along the outer fringes of this hemlock, gleaming from the jet-blackness enveloping the stem. This great crouching laurel, which Ike Davis and I saw looking like one giant bouquet of snowy blossoms, seems now, in each individual leaf, to be sculptured from ivory, or as if the blossoms had all been melted into a liquid mantle of light. The moss underneath that bank seems covered with rich net-work; whilst beside it, on that little glade, is a broad space of pure lustre, like a silver carpet spread there by Titania for the dance of her sprites.
And there is another radiance, too, besides that of the moon—the fire-flies. Every dark covert is alive with the gold-green sparklers, winking and blinking very industriously, as if they had only a short time to work in, and were determined to make the most of it.
There are multitudinous voices also all around us—on the ground, and in the branches—crickets—tree-toads—now and then a wakeful grasshopper—and the whet-saw, or cross-bill, tolling out its clear metallic notes from the depth of the forest.
Ah! it is a witching hour—most sweet, most touching and beautiful. However, we cannot stay here all night, even in the midst of moonlight fragrance, and music. So we all quit our seats, unwillingly, however, and move to the edge of the water. The scow receives us, with the exception of our two singers, who, with their ladies, embark in the skiff. We leave the whispering ripples—break through the net of lilies, making the yellow globes all round palpitate up and down like living objects trying to escape—and launch, straight as the sideways spasms of our swinish craft will allow, into the moon-lit middle of the lake. The skiff is performing numerous antics, as if in derision of our slow progress, crossing and re-crossing the spangled pathway of light, with an effect picturesque and spectre-like. The boat—each figure in its most minute outline, hat, profile, limbs, and all—the oars—even the row-locks—are drawn with a spider-web accuracy upon the rich, bright back-ground in the passages across, seen, however, only for a moment—quick—startling—as if lightning had flashed over, and then all relapsing into the usual moonlight indistinctness. It is something, also, like the opening and shutting of the fire-fly’s lamp, this exhibition of the party, as it were, by flashes.
But, hark! subsiding into quiet, and keeping but a little distance now from our slow, laboring bark, the skiff sends forth upon the night a strain of richest harmony. Lavigne and Murray blend their voices primo and secundo; and as we all glide slowly and sweetly toward the shore whence leads the way to home, to the air of “Come rest in this bosom;” this is the song they sing: —
Oh! what are Earth’s pleasures and glories to me,