Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/352

218 Derivable from things so plenteous,—

Pleasures not bought with gold—nor giving toil

Nor pain to living creature.

Oh! that all

Partook the feelings which companioned me

That bright Autumnal morning! The clear sky

Was blue unbroken, save by one or two

Small downy clouds of silvery white, that served

(In artist-phrase) to tell the azures depth,

And sailed along so silently and soft,

That I did long to be a cloud myself,

Soaring beside them:—and the Sun's warm rays

Fell kindly on the earth, whose fading garb,

Though torn by recent storms that had nigh stripped

The woodlands of their leavy wealth, looked gay.

I wandered on—along the beaten path,

Musing most happily;—and often paused

Beside the ragged hedgerow, picking out

From the rough tangled mass, despite the thorns

(Which, sooth to say, defended their charge well),

Bunches of wild red berries, faded leaves,—

And straggling nettle-tops. Sometimes a stick,

O'er which the pale-green Lichen mantling, wrought

A forest-scene in miniature. Now, a long,

Far-creeping, many-angled stalk of that fair plant,

Fair-seeming, yet oft treach'rous, wooddy nightshade:—