The Hawaiian gazette., 1870-10-05
In Ihe Woods.
A REvERTE.
raphernali

"A thing of beauty is a JOY forever" Thank
yon for such thought, dear, loving tender John
Keats We thank you in the funess of our
heart, as We sit on the verge of this glade, amid
the flowers and the clear, melodous runnels. that
you loved so well. We have turned aside from
the dusty high-road, and given up our soul to the
tender spirit that pervades this shady forest, and
to the associations that such an influence may be
shed upon US. There is sufficient material be-
meath the shadows Of the spreading chestnut and
the waving pine for an hours unalloyed pleasure :
and are satisfied that We can find here tongues
in trees, sermons in stones. books in running
brooks, and good in everything"
The flowers are spread around rs in the sweet
est profuson, all gittering with pearly dew, on
this June morning. Here the modest woodruff,
whittier than snow, peeps from beneath her feath-
cry fern; there the tender daffodil bends in tear
ful splendor. as if it were dropping its sadness
DER some fairy's grave. Here the last sick-loOk-
ing primrose clngs to the messy bark. while the
wild-vioet turns its bright, dewy eye upon it
looking last farewell Far as the eye can reach.
HllIlhuS vi HyuCiuluS IulSt lHclI pdlS Oluc
above the grass and seem like thin, blue stra-
tum Of cloud hanging over fairyland while here
by our side the sweet Narcissus repeats that
beautiful fable, and gazes dreamily at its
own graceful yet fading shadow in the crystal
stream. Then there are the humble, yet tender
and lovely moses, threading their lonely way
among the flowers and grass, forming one Of Ma
lures quiet mercies and yeIling with bushed-
tenderness the halfforgotten paths and the dnt
less rocks.
We see in the loneliness of this dell that Ma
ture never stints herself. Her profusion has
something glorious about it, for we feel that this
wood. far away in its untrodden tracts, possesses
little fowerworlds which no human eye will ever
see, yet none the less fragrant and lovely ON
that account.
Full many flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness to the desert air
We are glad that such is the case for were
Nature circunscribed to the limits Of our narrow
observation, she would lose all infnIty of lovli.
ness which she now claims solely on the grounds
that she las beauties which never hive and never
will be seen by the human eye. Moreover, there
is poetic halo lingering around that half-nega-
tive half-forgotten existence of these flowers in
the pathess woods. They are beautiful even in
their lonliness, with the soft breath of the sum-
mer morn kissing the dew from their chalices, the
black thirds note sung oert hem at the fall Of eve,
and the lustrous stars looking down on them
through the silent night.
But the flowers do not compromise the only
glory Of the woods. We have the delicious har
mony Of the birds going on from early morn to !
the close of eve The black-bird's note. full and
clear, Is trled from the bosom of yOu chestnut |
tree the robin sings his lag from the top of the |
peasant hut there, few yards of while the |
thrush answers from the top of the hawthorne /
brush yonder, beside the rustic gate. Beneath /
the sombre shadows of an,acient fr-tree the wild |
dove coos on in dreamy monotone while far
away, in some unlathomabIe grove, the cuckoo |
sends forth its mellow note, coming on us like
some DEAR halfforgotten song heard again in
l dream.
While IN the midst of such scene our mind
S inslinctively carried back 10 those days Of Ar
,adian simplicity when nymphs and dryads sport
ID in the subdued spendor of the woodlands of
classic lore-to the days when Pan tuned his
81 pes in the sylvan shades, and when the Graces
haunted the cool grottoes by the meandering
streams of Thessaly and Thrace.
Then there was halo about the tangled forest
which has never belonged to it since. The
ireek poets often sing of woods as special places
If sacred seclusion and beauty combined. The
rouse of Gree was in the midst of labyrinth of
rees the noble Ulysses frequently sought the
woodland shades, sometimes for the meditation
f future plans, at other times for safety; while
he aged and blind Gdipus is brought 10 repose
q the seclusion of forest, where the nightin-
ale sings in the myrtle groves, and in the SUM-
ess and MINDLESS thickets."
Medieval writers. Dante 10 particular, have
mite different feeling in reference to the woods
We cannot account for this change in any way,
nless from the fact that in the mi die ages forests
ad lost their Arcadan simplicity aud that, in
tead Of being haunted by imaginary gods and
oddesses, and all the poetic associations con
ected Herewith, we have nothing but banditti
n the one hand and wild beasts on the other.
his fact would certainly go great length in
isenchanting US with the charms Of any forests
Sc this as it may, it is an established fact that
he writer's of the middle ages looked on forests
18th anything but an agreeable eye. Dantes
ieas of forest are exceedingly repuisive. As
use in point, we have only to refer to the forest
Gene IN the Inferno of his Dicine Conedy. In
his case he cannot express despair about life
lore strongly than by saying, that in the begin
ing Of his dark journey through hell, he was
,st in the dark and dreary ramifcatons Of a wood
. terrible, that even to think or speak of it was
despair so grim and awful. that it was the near
st approach OF death that could be conceived.
again, in one Of bis most intensely weird scenes