The shad-bush, white with flowers, Brightened the glens; the new leaved butternut And quivering poplar to the roving breeze Gave a balsamic fragrance.

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs No school of long experience, that the world Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen Enough of all its sorrows, crimes and cares, To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm To thy sick heart.

The groves were God's first temple. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them,--ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication.

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;

Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger