bees, and mixing their honeyed scent with the more delicate violet
odour! How transparent and smooth and lusty are the branches, full
of sap and life! And there, just by the old mossy root, is a superb
tuft of primroses, with a yellow butterfly hovering over them, like
a flower floating on the air. What happiness to sit on this tufty
knoll, and fill my basket with the blossoms! What a renewal of
heart and mind! To inhabit such a scene of peace and sweetness is
again to be fearless, gay, and gentle as a child. Then it is that
thought becomes poetry, and feeling religion. Then it is that we
are happy and good. Oh, that my whole life could pass so, floating
on blissful and innocent sensation, enjoying in peace and gratitude
the common blessings of Nature, thankful above all for the simple
habits, the healthful temperament, which render them so dear! Alas!
who may dare expect a life of such happiness? But I can at least
snatch and prolong the fleeting pleasure, can fill my basket with
pure flowers, and my heart with pure thoughts; can gladden my little
home with their sweetness; can divide my treasures with one, a dear
one, who cannot seek them; can see them when I shut my eyes and
dream of them when I fall asleep.


THE COPSE.

April 18th.--Sad wintry weather; a northeast wind; a sun that puts
out one's eyes, without affording the slightest warmth; dryness that
chaps lips and hands like a frost in December; rain that comes
chilly and arrowy like hail in January; nature at a dead pause; no
seeds up in the garden; no leaves out in the hedgerows; no cowslips
swinging their pretty bells in the fields; no nightingales in the
dingles; no swallows skimming round the great pond; no cuckoos (that