The shades
of the trees, and patches of moonlight on the grass--the softly
blowing breeze, and just-palpable odor of the neighboring ripening
corn--the indolent and spiritual night, inexpressibly rich, tender,
suggestive--something altogether to filter through one's soul, and
nourish and feed and soothe the memory long afterwards.
WILD FLOWERS
This has been and is yet a great season for wild flowers; oceans
of them line the roads through the woods, border the edges of the
water-runlets, grow all along the old fences, and are scatter'd in
profusion over the fields. An eight-petal'd blossom of gold-yellow,
clear and bright, with a brown tuft in the middle, nearly as large
as a silver half-dollar, is very common; yesterday on a long drive I
noticed it thickly lining the borders of the brooks everywhere. Then
there is a beautiful weed cover'd with blue flowers, (the blue of the
old Chinese teacups treasur'd by our grand-aunts,) I am continually
stopping to admire--a little larger than a dime, and very plentiful.
White, however, is the prevailing color. The wild carrot I have spoken
of; also the fragrant life-everlasting. But there are all hues and
beauties, especially on the frequent tracts of half-opened scrub-oak
and dwarf cedar hereabout--wild asters of all colors. Notwithstanding
the frost-touch the hardy little chaps maintain themselves in all
their bloom. The tree-leaves, too, some of them are beginning to turn
yellow or drab or dull green. The deep wine-color of the sumachs and
gum-treesis already visible, and the straw-color of the dog-wood and
beech.
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