The Cottage in the Wood (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. IV. " I looked, and there beheld The pleasant home of my mortality. I sighed while I gazed on the little spot Of earth where last we parted, never more To meet again below t?and then I smiled To see how narrow now appeared the distance We wept to think should lie between our graves." Noon was now approaching, and still the sun was walking in brightness through the firmament. The thunder which had reached us in deep reverberations from behind the mountains had passed away, and its voice was heard no more. Every hill and dale was silent, basking, as it were, a present moment in the effulgence of the cloudless beam. The lake, too, was hushed, and scarce a dimple moved over its quiescent bosom. Some light skiff, perchance, swept along beneath us, bounding over the liquiddepth, impelled by the sinewy arm and well-managed oar. Afar, indeed, the cataract was roaring; but not as the sound of many waters did it break upon our ears. Its fall was mellowed by distance, and its rush only murmured through the else undisturbed tranquillity that reigned around. The little tenants of the woodlands were beginning to retire to their leafy bowers, from the uoon-tide heats. Their matin songs had ceased. Their incense had gone up with the general chorus of nature, and had been accepted on high, what time the sun went forth of his chamber to run his diurnal race. The busy hum of the children of men?though, withdrawn from human intercourse, happily we caught it not?was spreading wide the clash of interests, each one, alas ! seeking his own, and not his fellow's weal; unmindful of the beneficent injunction, " Love thy neighbour as thyself." As we rose to continue our way, my friend proceeded. " The season of my departure had at length arrived. It had pleased the gracious Dispenser of our ...