THE WOODS AT MIDNIGHT.

All things are hushed as nature's self lay dead;
The woodlands seem to nod their drowsy head;
The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,
And sleeping flowers beneath the night-dew sweat.

Fairie Queene.

THERE are too many persons living amongst us, whose minds, warped by the tortuous ways of money-getting, who can find no good in anything presented in the daily panorama of nature's glorious works never-ending, still beginning, and all beautiful in every change of the seasons, unless it turns money into their own pockets. But the most trifling things in life form, if we could discern them and apply them to their genuine use, the chain-that chain which binds us to heaven-the stem, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, the rill, the river, the breeze, the cloud, the wood-song, the

lightning flash, the thunder peal, the torrent roar things animate or inanimate, or even seemingly extraneous-nay, at all seasons and at all hours to the deep, the sincere, the big heart, even the WOODS AT MIDNIGHT.

Let us, at that mysterious hour, when "drowsy tinklings have lulled the distant folds," when the weary have found their home and are at rest, when sleep, innocent sleep, has closed the eyelids of grief and of affliction, when the angels of heaven are whispering in the ear of the sleeping infant, and dimpling its sweet cheeks with smiles which seem to partake more of heaven than of earth-let us plunge into the depths of the solemn midnight woods-not

but, in the woods of our own beloved land. Yet if thy heart is stricken with doubt or hesitation-if the feeling of fear has found a habitation within thine own bosom, blanching

* Gray.

the cowardly cheek-if thy mind is dark with the indelible stains of iniquity, distorted by malice, or warped by prejudice-blighted by the vice, which of all vices, clings to thee like thine own shadow, and throws a gloom over the fairest of names, the lilies of the field of life

"That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there ;*"

Oh! enter not within the precincts of the solemn midnight temple! Behold! Shrink not! There is, after all, something peculiarly awful and impressive, something peculiarly solemn and sublime, in the aspect and the associations of the Woods at Midnight.

""Tis now the very witching time of night;

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to the world."+

The busy hum of day, the chorus, swelling from a thousand harmonious throats, the sound of the woodman's axe, reverberated on

all sides, the shout of the labourer from the neighbouring furrows, taken up loudly by the margin of the wood, and whispered from its deepest recesses-the lowing of cattle-the bleating of sheep-the call of the partridge, the pheasant, the woodpecker, the jay, the magpie; these sounds, familiar to the ear during the prevalence of day, have wholly ceased; and, instead of the hum of countless insects, the sunny flight of the gorgeous butterflies, and the murmur of the merry-wandering bees, a more than mute expressive silence reigns around.

The night-flies, it is true, are abroad, and flitting about upon noiseless wing, in every direction. Yet, how solemn how awful the scene! The innumerable host of flowers, which enamel the floor of the solemn sanctuary, seeking out those hollow nooks and peaceful recesses, where they have erected their own perfumed and many-hued homes, have closed their eyes in sleep, as the silent dews of night steal around their drooping heads. Thick darkness has descended upon the scene

-so deep, and so impressive, indeed, that it may be felt in the very inmost recesses of the heart. Here is an impenetrable mass of foliage

as black as death, and as mute as black, the seeming abode of bony spectres and of bloody apparitions, all huddled together in discordant compact, gibbering at each other's hideousness, and ready to track the footsteps of the midnight murderer; there, knots of merry elves and tiny fairies are preparing for the midnight revel, some dancing around in fantastic whirls, to the small taper-light of the glow-worm, with its voiceless music, others are hanging the dew-drop in the eye of the flower, or preparing for their gambols over the adjacent meadows, to leave their rings upon the grass of "which the ewe not bites." Lower down, in the uneven rocky hollow, the darkness is, if possible, still more dense; and from its inmost recesses, the attentive ear is smitten with a low-breathing, deep, mysterious moan, which dies away upon the wind like the wave along the shore, but leaves upon the soul an impression not easily obliterated by the ebbing tide of time.

Onwards! The riding is broad; and there is ample room and verge enough for the purpose of defence, should danger threaten. Behold! at the extremity of the long-drawn vista, sinking towards the horizon, Sirius, the dog-star, has