For the Every-Day Book.
An Evening Walk.
Love Lane.
’Tis fitter now to ease the brain,
To take a quiet walk in a green lane.
Byron.
This observation of our matchless bard, the idol and delight of our own times, though just, few I fear follow—either from want of inclination, or what is as bad, want of time. But there are some whose hours of toil, mental and bodily, do not preclude them from seeking the tranquil haunts of nature. With me, after nervous irritability and mental excitement, it has been, and is a favourite enjoyment, to quit the dusky dwellings of man, and wander among the fields and green lanes of our southern shore, while the sun is declining, and stillness begins to settle around.
Listlessly roving, whither I cared not, I have sauntered along till I felt my unquiet sensations gradually subside, and a pleasing calmness steal upon me. I know of nothing more annoying than that nervous thrilling or trembling, which runs through the whole frame after the mind has been troubled; it seems to me like the bubbling and restless swell of the ocean after a storm—one mass of fretful and impatient water, knowing not how to compose itself. But to come to the green fields. There is a lane leading from the grove at Camberwell called Love-lane; it is well so called—long, winding, and quiet, with scenery around beautifully soft—the lover might wander with the mistress of his soul for hours in undisturbed enjoyment. This lane is dear to me, for with it is linked all my early associations—the bird—the butterfly—the wild white rose—my first love. The bird is there still, the butterfly hovers there, and the rose remains; but where is my first love? I may not ask. Echo will but answer, “where!” yet I may in imagination behold her—I call up the shadowy joys of former times, and like the beautiful vision in “Manfred,” she stands before me:—
A thousand recollections in her train
Of joy and sorrow, ere the bitter hour
Of separation came, never again
To meet in this wide world as we have met,
To feel as we have felt, to look, to speak,
To think alone as we have thought allow’d.
What happy feelings have been ours in that quiet lane! We have wandered arm in arm, gazed on the scenery, listened to the bird. We have not spoken, but our eyes have met, and thoughts too full for utterance, found answers there. Those days are gone; yet I love to wander there alone, even now; to press the grass that has been pressed by her feet, to pluck the flower from the hedge where she plucked it, to look on the distant hills that she looked on, rising in long smooth waves, when not a sound is heard save the “kiss me dear,” which some chaffinch is warbling to his mate, or the trickling of waters seeking their sandy beds in the hollows beneath the hedgerows. I strolled thither a few evenings ago: the sun was softly sinking, and the bright crimson which surrounded him, fading into a faint orange, tinged here and there with small sable clouds; the night-cloud was advancing slowly darkly on; afar in the horizon were