What sound is that!—so like the far-off tones of a hundred musical instruments, faintly murmuring? Ah! I thought so. Here they are:
“They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen; Some on the backs of beetles fly, From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, And rocked about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest,— They had driven him out by elfin power, And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Have slumbered there till the charmed hour. Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering izing-stars inlaid; And some had opened the four-o’-clock And stole within its purple shade. And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above—below—on every side, Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!” _Drake._
That was but a flight of fancy. I look again, and instead of the fairies, I behold a myriad of fair flowers, peeping at the sky from the green luxuriant grass.
But see! I have reached—surely it can be none other—a prairie! What dark cloud is brooding over this motionless ocean?—a mighty flame bursting from its centre? It comes! it comes! The prairie is on fire! The wind is rising, and swift as the wind speed the flame-banners. Maddened by fear, the buffalo, the wild horse, the wolf, the deer, birds, and other living creatures, are fleeing for their lives. Roaring and hissing the fire-flood rolls on, swallowing up every thing in its course. And now it has gone, leaving behind it a wide path of blackness. The smoke obscures the moon and stars. “Far-off its coming shone;” the incense of a sacrifice offered to the great God by the Earth, for some enormous sin. But it is gone; and I resume my journey.
I am now in an open country of hills and dales. A narrow but deep river is gliding by me in its pride and beauty. Now it is lost to view by some abrupt headland, and anon it makes a long sweep through a plain or meadow, its ripples sporting in the moonlight. I hear the splash of fish, leaping from their watery bed. I hear the measured stroke of a paddle. It is an Indian in his birch canoe, passing down the river. He has started a loon from his wavy cradle below the rapids. I hear the sound of a waterfall. A mile away there is a precipice, where the river gathers all its strength for a fearful leap. Now its surface is without a ripple,—but in a moment more, and it plunges down among the rocks, and the waves struggle, and leap, and rise and sink, like demon-spirits in agony.
