what silence is there here? The merry insects hum and whirl around us, saying: 'Summer has come, summer has come;' the weary winds, faint with their long winter's strife, sigh softly in the tall tree-tops; a moor-hen calls shrilly from her nest among the rushes; a lark pours from the stainless heavens a rain of melody; and the silence overflows with music. The bright motes dance in the still air, trying to get into our shadowy abode.

Sol is in his kindliest humour to-day; not harsh and fierce, as he will be later in the year, smiting with cruel hands the tender flowers, until they droop their sad heads beneath his hot anger; but wooing them with warm and genial smiles from their gentle mother's breast, beneath which they have been sleeping safely through the chill winter. All things beneath his beams rejoice. The river; the fields in their delicate green robes, which, as they grow bolder under his gaze, they will change for sweeping kirtles of ruddy gold; the silver clouds cradled in the sky's fair arms; even the modest river-buds which scarcely lift their shy eyes above the water. Around us float the pure cups of the water-lilies. The banks by which we sit are fringed with pale forget-me-not; and delicate ferns push their tender fronds through their beds of last year's fallen leaves—life springing from death. The pale pink water-grasses rear their heads above the ripples, and the sun stares them out of countenance, until by-and-by they blush a celestial rosy red; kingfishers gleam by, their blue wings flashing streaks of turquoise.

How sharp and clear the shadows lie in the embrace of the soft stream! Which is the real world, I wonder? The one shining so joyously around and beyond us, or that other lying cool and still beneath our keel? How I should like to plunge down and see! But perhaps if I did, the water-pixies might throw their spells around me, and I might never return to the world above, which after all is fair enough for me.

As I make this reflection, we see the bow of a canoe peeping into our watery bower; and I am brought back to earth by hearing a merry young voice inquiring if we have any lunch to spare. So we unpack our baskets, and landing, spread our sweet country fare on the sward—crisp home-made bread, pats of golden butter, fragrant honey, and fresh creamy milk. Then the talk, which has languished before, becomes brisk; and many a gay jest is bandied round the fallen moss-clad tree which forms our rustic table.

'Read us something,' says one of the merry group—'something suited to the scene.' So a book is taken up by willing hands, and a voice we all love reads us fair thoughts which have arisen in poet-minds while gazing on Nature's lovely works. High and noble thoughts they are, and to me they are dear familiar friends; but to-day, my eyes wander to the poetry in God's creations round me, and I whisper to myself:

So the bright afternoon wears away, pleasant talk alternating with snatches of luxurious silence, and the evening draws on apace. The shadows begin to lengthen, and lie like swartly-clad giants along the grass. The birds hush their song, and here and there the curious fishes spring from their cool bed to take a last look at the dying day. Reluctantly we turn our faces homewards.

Right before us the sun is sinking with passionate glowing cheeks into the murky arms of Night. The gates of heaven open to let Phœbus pass through, and from out them streams a sea of wondrous light, in which pearl and opal clouds float in a lake of delicate green and amber. The trees look inky black against the sky's pure spiritual face. An owl hoots mournfully from yonder, stately poplar; the silent bat flits by on noiseless wing; here and there a glow-worm is lighting its tiny lamp; and the frogs croak us a cheery 'Good-night!' as our boat glides softly by the rushes. But not yet do we return it. We say: 'We will come out again when the moon is up.'

And so we do. In defiance of any rheumatic or neuralgic future which our elders prophesy for us, evening after evening we come out to watch the fair Night lighting her beacon-fires overhead.

The mist-wreathed elms stand by the water like rows of ghostly sentinel monks with gray cowls drawn over their heads; the willows look like silver trees transplanted from some far Peruvian garden; and the water drops from the wet blades of the oars in little showers of diamond dew. Above our heads the nightingale is pouring his liquid melody over the land. We listen, still and hushed. Surely our hearts grow purified, and the cares and sorrows of the world drop from us unheeded as we listen.

Philomela's song makes the silence round us seem deeper and more calm. The flowers have folded their delicate robes more closely around them, and have lain down to dream beneath the stars; even the river seems asleep, and the dark shadows clasped so tightly to his breast. Slowly the pale moon climbs the purple vault of heaven, casts from her her gauzy veil, and looks down on us with her pure and vestal eyes. The stars awaken one by one, and come forth to do her homage. The gold-hearted cups of the water-lilies drink long draughts of silver dew. The willows, like Narcissus of old, gaze wistfully at their own fair faces in the stream; and the aspens quiver with eerie thoughts unknown to us. Surely, riding on the moonbeam which rests on yonder ripple, I see a water-pixie; and resting beneath the shadow of the dock-leaves, I spy a wood-elf! But some one speaks, and they are gone. We drift silently homewards; silently, for our enjoyment has become too deep for words. Silently we land, and still silently I seek my chamber, and opening my window, gaze into the moonlit garden beyond.

The flowers have folded their leaves beneath the soft kisses of the night, and lie sleeping placidly in the dim and tender light; the air is laden with their fragrant breath, which is always sweetest when they lie dreaming beneath the summer stars. The flame-coloured geraniums, the white and wandlike lilies, and the many-tinted roses, are all alike, misty and indistinct; and the sinuous and mossy paths, touched here and there by the soft light, lose themselves in darkness beneath the dusky hedges. Beyond them lies my beloved river, on which the starry river-buds float tremulously. The earth is all at rest, and above it the moon hangs like a silver lamp in the star-lit sky; and overhead one nightingale, the last, for the rest have sunk into silence, trills forth his Elysian chant, and mingles with the dreams of the sleeping flowers.

What a fair world! Is it possible that sorrow exists, that these, God's ineffable works, can ever be defaced by sin?

Such are the days and nights I spend when I make holiday in the old house by the river. Alas! that ever the day should dawn when turning my back on its poetry, I return once more to the prose of our work-a-day world.