Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/306

Rh wood ; how large and handsome its leaves; how full it is of flowers! to which the bees,

A little further off the chestnut trees, also in their late bloom, dot the woods with unexpected beauty,—looking afar off like white roses sprinkled in the grass. How well their great round tops contrast with the tall pines further up on the hill! The grouping of plants is admirable as the several beauty of each. Nature never combines the inappropriate, nor makes a vulgar match. There are no misalliances in that wedlock. How lovely is the shadow of the oak, as it lies there half on land, half in the water! The swallow stoops on the wing, dips her bill, and then flies off to her populous nest in the rafters of the barn; how curiously she clings there, braced by her stiff tail, and wakes up the little ones to fill their mouths ! and then comes such twittering as reminds the city horse of his own colthood in the far-off pastures of Vermont.

"Ah me," says the grocer, "what a world of use here is! see the ground, how rich the clover is! time it was cut too,—running into the ground every day. How the corn comes out! Earth full of moisture, air full of heat, country never looked finer! How the Indian corn, that Mississippi of grain, rolls out that long stream of green leaves; it will tassel this very week I What a fine water power the pond is! only ten foot fall, and yet it is stronger than all the king's oxen, turns 'Zekiel's mill just as it used to father's, sawing in winter and spring, and grinding all the year through; now it does more yet, for he has put the water to 'prentice, and taught it many a trade. How big the trees are! that great pasture white oak, twenty feet in circumference,—Captain McKay would give two hundred dollars for it, take it where it stands, here; it has only one leg to stand on, but so many knees! That hill-side where the cows are, what admirable pasture it is, early and late! see the white clover—a little lime brought that out! what a growth of timber further up! What a useful world it is! what a deal of engineering it took to put it together! only to run such a world after it was set up must take an Infinite Providence. It is a continual