Page [185].
The flower
Of sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem
The red drops fell like blood.
The Sanguinaria Canadensis, or blood-root, as it is commonly called, bears a delicate white flower of a musky scent, the stem of which breaks easily, and distils a juice of a bright-red color.
Page [191].
The shad-bush, white with flowers,
Brightened the glens.
The small tree, named by the botanists Aronia Botyrapium, is called, in some parts of our country, the shad-bush, from the circumstance that it flowers about the time that the shad ascend the rivers in early spring. Its delicate sprays, covered with white blossoms before the trees are yet in leaf, have a singularly beautiful appearance in the woods.
Page [192].
"There hast thou," said my friend, "a fitting type
Of human life."
I remember hearing an aged man, in the country, compare the slow movement of time in early life, and its swift flight as it approaches old age, to the drumming of a partridge or ruffed grouse in the woods—the strokes falling slow and distinct at first, and following each other more and more rapidly, till they end at last in a whirring sound.
Page [194].