“A thousand slimy things lived on, And so did I.”
Again did we retire to rest, slumbering until the break of day. We then partook of a substantial trout breakfast, gathered up our plunder, and with about one hundred handsome trout started for home.
The accidents we met with during the night were harmless, though somewhat ridiculous. A paper of matches, which Peter carried in his breeches’ pocket, took fire, and gave him such a scorching that he bellowed lustily. White Yankee, in his restless slumber, rolled so near our watch-fire, that he barely escaped with one corner of his blanket, the remainder having been consumed. As for me, I only fell into the water among the lizards, while endeavouring to reach the end of a log, which extended into the lake. In descending the mountain, we shot three partridges, and confoundedly frightened a fox; and by the middle of the afternoon, were quietly pursuing our usual avocations among our fellow-men of the lower world.
A Spring Day—The Sky—The Mountains—The Streams—The Woods—The Open Fields—Domestic Animals—Poetry—The Poultry-yard.
May is near its close, and I am still in the valley of the Hudson. Spring is indeed come again, and this, for the present year, has been its day of triumph. The moment I awoke at dawn, this morning, I knew by intuition that it would be so, and I bounded from my couch like a startled deer, impatient for the cool delicious air. Spring is upon the earth once more, and a new life is given me of enjoyment and hope. The year is in its childhood, and my heart clings to it with a sympathy, that I feel must be immortal and divine. What I have done to-day, I cannot tell: I only know that my body has been tremulous with feeling, and my eyes almost blinded with seeing. Every hour has been fraught with a new emotion of delight, and presented to my vision numberless pictures of surpassing beauty. I have held communion with the sky, the mountains, the streams, the woods, and the fields; and these, if you please, shall be themes of my present chapter.
The sky! It has been of as deep an azure, and as serene, as ever canopied the world. It seemed as if you could look through it, into the illimitable home of the angels—could almost behold the glory which surrounds the Invisible. Three clouds alone have attracted my attention. One was the offspring of the dawn, and encircled by a rim of gold; the next was the daughter of noon, and white as the driven snow; and the last of evening, and robed in deepest crimson. Wayward and coquettish creatures were these clouds! Their chief ambition seemed to be to display their charms to the best advantage, as if conscious of their loveliness; and, at sunset, when the light lay pillowed on the mountains, it was a joyous sight to see them, side by side, like three sweet sisters, as they were, going home. Each one was anxious to favour the world with its own last smile, and by their changing places so often, you would have thought they were all unwilling to depart. But they were the ministers of the Sun, and he would not tarry for them; and, while he beckoned them to follow on, the Evening Star took his station in the sky, and bade them depart: and when I looked again, they were gone. Never more, thought I, will those clouds be a source of joy to a human heart. And in this respect, also, they seemed to me to be the emblems of those beautiful but thoughtless maidens, who spend the flower of youth trifling with the affections of all whom they have the power to fascinate.