The Hawaiian gazette., 1870-10-05

By lost souls, who kept up q doleful and ever
lasting wall.
As we come down to more modern writers VI
find ,he brighter views are taken of the sylvan
features of nature. While Dante would have sem
no one but damned spirit, we find Chaucer anG
Spenser sending fairies and knights to dispor'
themselves in the sunny CLEANS that pierce the
rades. The immaculate Una and the sportivt
Sylvia can trip along the dew-bespangied dells un
der the bright spell or Spenser ola Chaucer, when
the gloomy wand of Dante would have sent the
Florentine spirits through wailing avenue ofthe
darkest gloom. We cannot account for this vast
difference in any other way than by the influence
we have already mentioned.
The reaction for the better is very manifest in
Spenser, while the bright aspect reaches its high,
est development through the pen of Shakespeare.
He revived the glory of the greenwood in all its
Arcadan splendor. Follow 0beron and Titana
fora few minutes, and see how you get bathed
with the dews OF the forest and luled by the song
of the birds. We fancy we hear the voice Of
Oberon, in that Midsummer Nights Dream, call
from yon shady dell in that Anthenan wood:
1 know bank wherein the wild thyme blows,
Where or-lps and the noddidg violets grows;
Quite overcanopied with luscious woOdbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
Again, we never weary of that sunny sp!endor
which is thrown by the same master-mnd on the
sylvan shades of the Forest of Arden, in his
matchIess comedy As You Like II. Who would
ever tire wandering by the bubbling runnels that
murmur beneath the glorious beeches and
oaks which we see 30 beautifully set before us
With what intense delight do we wander through
that forest, now catching glimpse Of the rosy
features, plump and full, of Phebe the shepherd
ess now listening to the loud and joyous laugh
Of Audrey anon watching the fairy Rosalind
and the gentle Celia, as they trip through each
bosky dell, or listening to the teachings of the
philosophical Jacques, as be lies reclined beneath
his hoary oak, and goes over in practical kind
of logic the seven ages Of man.
Such. then. was the greenwood of Shakespeare
Tie RIccuHOOu VI
laughed and sported in the sylvan shade; when
the bugle-horn sounded for the chase, and when
the ruby wine was quafed to the songs of hunts
men, monks, and archers dressed in Lincoln green.
Such scenes where Shakespeare's peculiar JOY,
and such be loved to paint
Our later poets abound in passages appreciative
of forest scenery. Wordsworth's affection for it
was most tender. Sheley's ALastor reveals fully
the principle of grandeur which can be fonnd in
the interminable vistas of forest while no one
can study poor Keats Hyperion without admir-
ing the exquisite and subdued beauty depicted on
the one hand, and shedding tears at the poor
dying youths sympathy for the tender influence
of the flowers of the grove on the other.
We bless God for the glade and the forest !!
Their proper study refnes our souls, and makes
US endeavor to attain more fully to the Beautiful
and True. While they reveal themselves in all
their lights and shadows to our imagination, they
tend TO shed upon our soul
The light that never shore,
The conservation of the poets dream
Chambers Journal