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fantastic, almost human. Now open your Tennyson:

And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray.'

Our cowslip is the English marsh-marigold.

that wave like rolling mist. Graceful islands rise from the quiet waters,-- Grape Island, Grass Island, Sharp Pine Island, and the rest, baptized with simple names 5 by departed generations of farmers,- all wooded and bushy and trailing with festoonery of vines. Here and there the banks are indented, and one may pass beneath drooping chestnut-leaves and among

History is a grander poetry, and it is often urged that the features of Nature 10 alder-branches into some secret sanctuary

in America must seem tame because they
have no legendary wreaths to decorate
them. It is perhaps hard for those of
us who are untraveled to appreciate how
densely even the ruralities of Europe are 15
overgrown with this ivy of associations.
Thus, it is fascinating to hear that the
great French forests of Fontainebleau and
St. Germain are full of historic trees,-
the oak of Charlemagne, the oak of Clovis, 20
of Queen Blanche, of Henri Quatre, of
Sully, the alley of Richelieu,- the
rendezvous of St. Hérem,- the star of
Lamballe and of the Princesses, a star be-
ing a point where several paths or roads 25
converge. It is said that every topo-
graphical work upon these forests has
turned out a history of the French mon-
archy. Yet surely we lose nearly as much
as we gain by this subordination of im- 30
perishable beauty to the perishable memo-
ries of man. It may not be wholly un-
fortunate, that, in the absence of those in-
fluences which come to older nations
from ruins and traditions, we must go 35
more directly to Nature. Art may either
rest upon other Art, or it may rest di-
rectly upon the original foundation; the
one is easier, the other more valuable.
Direct dependence on Nature leads to 40
deeper thought, and affords the promise of
far fresher results. Why should I wish
to fix my study in Heidelberg Castle,
when I possess the unexhausted treasures
of this out-door study here?

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The walls of my study are of everchanging verdure, and its roof and floor of ever-varying blue. I never enter it without a new heaven above and new thoughts below. The lake has no lofty 50 shores and no level ones, but a series of undulating hills, fringed with woods from end to end. The profaning ax may sometimes come near the margin, and one may hear the whetting of the scythe; but no 55 cultivated land abuts upon the main lake, though beyond the narrow woods there are here and there glimpses of rye-fields

of stillness. The emerald edges of these silent tarns are starred with dandelions which have strayed here, one scarce knows how, from their foreign home; the buck-bean perchance grows in the water, or the Rhodora fixes here one of its shy camping-places, or there are whole skies of lupine on the sloping banks; - the catbird builds its nest beside us, the yellowbird above, the wood-thrush sings late and the whippoorwill later, and sometimes the scarlet tanager and his golden-haired bride send a gleam of the tropics through these leafy aisles.

Sometimes I rest in a yet more secluded place amid the waters, where a little wooded island holds a small lagoon in the center, just wide enough for the wherry to turn round. The entrance lies between two hornbeam trees, which stand close to the brink, spreading over it their thorn-like branches and their shining leaves. Within there is perfect shelter; the island forms a high circular bank, like a coral reef, and shuts out the wind and the passing boats; the surface is paved with leaves of lily and pond-weed, and the boughs above are full of song. No matter what white caps may crest the blue waters of the pond, which here broadens out to its broadest reach, there is always quiet here. A few oar-strokes distant lies a dam or water-break, where the whole lake is held under control by certain distant mills, towards which a sluggish stream goes winding on through miles of water-lilies. The old gray timbers of the dam are the natural resort of every boy or boatman within their reach; some come in pursuit of pickerel, some of turtles, some of bullfrogs, some of lilies, some of bathing. It is a good place for the last desideratum, and it is well to leave here the boat tethered to the vines which overhang the cove, and perform a sacred and Oriental ablution beneath the sunny after

noon.

O radiant and divine afternoon! The

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poets profusely celebrate silver evenings. and golden mornings; but what floods on floods of beauty steep the earth and gladden it in the first hours of day's decline! The exuberant rays reflect and multiply themselves from every leaf and blade; the cows lie upon the hillside, with their broad peaceful backs painted into the landscape; the hum of insects, tiniest bells on the garment of silence,' fills the 10 air; the gorgeous butterflies doze upon the thistle-blooms till they almost fall from the petals; the air is full of warm fragrance from the wild-grape clusters; the grass is burning hot beneath the naked 15 feet in sunshine, and cool as water in the shade. Diving from this overhanging beam,- for Ovid evidently meant that Midas to be cured must dive,

'Subde caput, corpusque simul, simul elue crinem,'

one finds as kindly a reception from the water as in childish days, and as safe a 25 shelter in the green dressing-room afterwards; and the patient wherry floats near by, in readiness for a reëmbarkation.

the woods and waters. Time has dispelled the fear. As I rest poised upon the oars above some submerged shallow, diamonded with ripple-broken sunbeams, the fantastic Notonecta or water-boatman rests upon his oars below, and I see that his proportions anticipated the wherry, as honeycombs antedated the problem of the hexagonal cell. While one of us rests, so does the other; and when one shoots away rapidly above the water, the other does the same beneath. For the time, as our motions seem the same, so with our motives, my enjoyment certainly not less, with the conveniences of humanity thrown in.

But the sun is declining low. The clubboats are out, and from island to island in the distance these shafts of youthful 20 life shoot swiftly across. There races some swift Atalanta, with no apple to fall in her path but some soft and spotted oak-apple from an overhanging tree; there the Phantom, with a crew white and ghost-like in the distance, glimmers in and out behind the headlands, while yonder wherry glides lonely across the smooth expanse. The voices of all these oarsmen are dim and almost inaudible, being so far away; but one would scarcely wish that distance should annihilate the ringing laughter of these joyous girls, who come gliding, in a safe and heavy boat, they and some blue dragon-flies together, around yonder wooded point.

Here a word seems needed, unprofessionally and nontechnically, upon boats, 30 - these being the sole seats provided for occupant or visitor in my out-door study. When wherries first appeared in this peaceful inland community, the novel proportions occasioned remark. Facetious 35 bystanders inquired sarcastically whether that thing were expected to carry more than one, plainly implying by labored. emphasis that it would occasionally be seen tenanted by even less than that num- 40 ber. Transcendental friends inquired, with more refined severity, if the proprietor expected to meditate in that thing? This doubt at least seemed legitimate. Meditation seems to belong to sailing 45 rather than rowing; there is something so gentle and unintrusive in gliding effortless beneath overhanging branches and along the trailing edges of clematis thickets: what a privilege of fairy-land is 50 this noiseless prow, looking in and out of one flowery cove after another, scarcely stirring the turtle from his log, and leaving no wake behind! It seemed as if all the process of rowing had too much noise 55 and bluster, and as if the sharp slender wherry, in particular, were rather too pert and dapper to win the confidence of

Many a summer afternoon have I rowed joyously with these same maidens beneath these steep and garlanded shores; many a time have they pulled the heavy four-oar, with me as coxswain at the helm, the said patient steersman being ofttimes insulted by classical allusions from rival boats, satirically comparing him to an indolent Venus drawn by doves, while the oarswomen, in turn, were likened to Minerva with her feet upon a tortoise. Many were the disasters in the earlier days of feminine training; - first of toilet, straw hats blowing away, hair coming down, hair-pins strewing the floor of the boat, gloves commonly happening to be off at the precise moment of starting, and trials of speed impaired by somebody's oar catching in somebody's dresspocket. Then the actual difficulties of handling the long and heavy oars, the first essays at feathering, with a complicated splash of air and water, as when

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a wild duck, in rising, swims and flies together, and uses neither element handsomely, the occasional pulling of a particularly vigorous stroke through the atmosphere alone, and at other times the compensating disappearance of nearly the whole oar beneath the liquid surface, as if some Uncle Kühleborn had grasped it, while our Undine by main strength tugged it from the beguiling wave. But with 10 what triumphant abundance of merriment were these preliminary disasters repaid, and how soon outgrown! What 'time' we sometimes made, when nobody happened to be near with a watch, and how 15 successfully we tossed oars in saluting, when the world looked on from a picnic! We had our applauses, too. To be sure, owing to the age and dimensions of the original barge, we could not command 20 such a burst of enthusiasm as when the young men shot by us in their race-boat; but then, as one of the girls justly remarked, we remained longer in sight.

And many a day, since promotion to 25 a swifter craft, have they rowed with patient stroke down the lovely lake, still attended by their guide, philosopher, and coxswain, along banks where herds of young birch-trees overspread the sloping 30 valley, and ran down in a blaze of sunshine to the rippling water,- or through the Narrows, where some breeze rocked the boat till trailing shawls and ribbons were watersoaked, and the bold little foam 35 would even send a daring drop over the gunwale, to play at ocean,- or to Davis's

Cottage, where a whole parterre of lupines bloomed to the water's edge, as if relics of some ancient garden-bower of a forgotten race, or to the dam by Lily Pond, there to hunt among the stones for snakes' eggs, each empty shell cut crosswise, where the young creatures had made their first fierce bite into the universe outside, -or to some island, where white violets bloomed fragrant and lonely, separated by relentless breadths of water from their shore-born sisters, until mingled in their visitors' bouquets, then up the lake homeward again at nightfall, the boat all decked with clematis, clethra, laurel, azalea, or water-lilies, while purple sunset clouds turned forth their golden linings for drapery above our heads, and then, unrolling, sent northward long roseate wreaths to outstrip our loitering speed, and reach the floating bridge before us.

It is nightfall now. One by one the birds grow silent, and the soft dragonflies, children of the day, are fluttering noiselessly to their rest beneath the under sides of drooping leaves. From shadowy coves the evening air is thrusting forth a thin film of mist to spread a white floor above the waters. The gathering darkness deepens the quiet of the lake, and bids us, at least for this time, to forsake it. De soir fontaines, de matin montaignes,' says the old French proverb,— Morning for labor, evening for repose.

The Atlantic Monthly, September,

1861.

BAYARD TAYLOR (1825-1878)

Of the writers of the younger group which began to come into prominence by the middle of the century by far the most promising was Bayard Taylor. During the two decades before his death he laid hold strongly upon the imagination of America, and it was everywhere felt that he was ultimately to rank with Longfellow and Whittier and Lowell. He had come from humble surroundings in Pennsylvania, had been schooled largely in a rural printing office, and at nineteen had issued a volume of poems and then almost without funds, started upon a picturesque journey through Europe. Views Afoot, 1846, tells the story of it. Upon his return to America he secured a position on the New York Tribune, was sent to California to report the gold excitement of 1849, made a second journey to Europe in 1851, extending it into Africa and to India and China, and returning, published among other things his Poems of the Orient, 1854. During the rest of his life he was a picturesque figure, the great American traveler.' greatly sought after by lyceum lecture courses all over America. He made other trips abroad, was secretary of legation to Russia, and in 1878 was appointed United States Minister to Germany, but died shortly after reaching his post.

The literary productiveness of Taylor was marvelous. His books aggregate nearly fifty titles, some twelve of them records of travel, three of them novels, several of them translations and studies in German literature, some of them essays and boys' books, the rest of them poetry, and in addition to all this was a great mass of newspaper and magazine work and lectures. His literary ambition, however, centered upon poetry. More and more during his later period he put forth his best efforts to produce what should make him remembered in later years. He wrote dramas.-The Masque of the Gods, 1872. The Prophet, A Tragedy, 1874. Prince Denkalion. 1878: he came before the nation on two great occasions with The Gettysburg Ode, 1869, and The Centennial Ode, 1876; and he added to our literature what undoubtedly is the best translation in English of Goethe's Faust, but it is realized now that he failed in his ambition. He was not a poet of high rank. He had facility, but not large creative power or originality. His brilliant parodies in his book The Echo Club show the strength and the weakness of the man. He was not a plagiarist, yet it may be said that the greater part of what he wrote would never have been written had earlier poets not written. To realize this one needs but to compare Shelley's Indian Serenade' with the Bedouin Song.' Taylor's phenomenal memory was stocked with the poetry of all the world and he wrote, unconsciously doubtless, always from a recollection of this store-house rather than from a driving creative impulse that sent him into fields new and strange.

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