THE LEVEL LAND. STIRRED by great aims, our eager souls leap high A land of sunny turf and laughing rills, In sparkling air the poplars quiver high; A clearer music whispers in the reeds Her very self, but taller and more fair- And there is many a wide and busy way Maidens are there might bid a gazer deem They have no laughter there of lofty scorn, Of hidden pain and weariness of heart. Sweet with the kiss of ripples on the sand, Like a midsummer madrigal which tells O heavy Thought! Can Sleep no comfort yield, Who conquers every pain with transient healthLost ere the sick heart knew that it was healedFair Sleep, who mocks and blesses us by stealth, Bids us be kings and rule the empty air, Fly on swift pinions, or renew our youthCan Sleep no comfort yield in my despair? O for a sleep whose visions, faint and fair, Should gather strength, should win a virtue rare, Open like buds, and blossom into Truth! Is there such perfect slumber 'neath the sky? Nay, is there not? It might be found, I think, Could I attain that land. Could I but lie Upon the level turf, and softly sigh, 'Mid the soft sighing of the water's brink, Till I forgot the strife of Right and Wrong, Forgot the gloom of overhanging Death, And slept off all my care 'mid rippling song, Might I not rise, and drawing fuller breath, Wake to no torpid creeping of the blood, But a quick rush of life-no languid flow Of joy wrung out amid encircling woe, But gladness pouring in a golden flood? Dream of a fool! The soul makes answer, No. Not mine, nor shall be mine from first to last, Not mine that land, in days afar or near. How could I ever long its shores to win?-I who strain upward toward an atmosphere Of sovereign calm, so thin and crystal clear All lower life must faint and die therein. Yet is my path encompassed by the spell. AM sitting alone upon a wooded knoll at our old farm at Hometown. Above me a venerable oak holds aloft its dome of bronze VOL. LXI.-No. 366.-55 green verdure, and on either side the It is a spot endeared to me from summer's full fruition is passed and gone, the dross has been consumed, and in the lingering life whose yielding flush now lends its sweet expression to the declining year we see the type of perfect trust and hope that finds a fitting emblem in the dim horizon, where heaven and earth are wedded in a golden haze, where purple hills melt softly in the sky. It is a day when one may dream with open eyes, and whose day-dreams haunt the memory as sweet realities. earliest memo- | The sky is filled with rolling fleecy clouds, whose bases seem to float upon a transparent amber sea, from whose depths I look through into the blue air beyond. ture? Below me an ancient orchard skirts the borders of the knoll. Its boughs are crimson-studded, and the ground beneath is strewn with the bright red fruit. They mark the minutes as they fall, running the gauntlet of the craggy twigs, and bounding upon the slope beneath. Beyond the orchard stretch the low flat meadow-lands, set with alders and swampmaples, with swaying willows, now inclosing, now revealing, the graceful curves of the quiet stream as it winds in and out among the overhanging foliage. Soon it is lost beneath a wooded hill where an old square tower and factory bell betray the hiding-place of the glassy pond that sends its splashing water-fall across the rocks beneath the old town bridge. Looking down upon this bridge, Mount Pisgah, with its rugged cliff, is seen rising bold and stern against the sky above a broad and bright mosaic of elms and maples, spreading from the grove of oaks near by in an The unbroken expanse' to the very foot of the It is an enchanted vision of nature's autumn loveliness, a vision of peace and tranquil resignation, that lingers like a poem in the memory. It is a glorious October day, one of those rarest and loveliest of days when all nature seems transfigured, when a golden misty veil swings from the heavens in a haze through which the commonest and most prosaic thing seems spiritualized and glorified. precipice, with here and there a sunny cupola or gable peering out among the branches, or a snowy steeple lifting high its golden cross or weather-vane glittering in the sun. The mountain-side is lit up with its autumn glow of intermingled maples, oaks, and beeches, with its changeless ledges of jutting rock and dense defiant pines, standing like veteran bearded sentinels in perpetual vigilance. Beyond the bed of moss near by, a scrubby growth of whortleberry takes possession of the ground. The bushes are now bare of fruit, but ruddy with their autumn blushes, tingeing the surface of the knoll with a delicate coral pink. This thicket extends far down upon the slope, even encroaching upon the wheel-ruts of the lane, and across again, until cut short by an ancient tumbling line of lichencovered stones, a landmark, which has long since yielded up its claim as a barrier of protection to the old orchard it incloses, now only a moss-grown pile, with every chink and crevice a nestling-place of some searching tendril, fern, or clambering vine. For rods and rods it creeps along beneath the laden apple-trees, skirting the borders of this old farm lane, and finally hides among a clump of cedars a few hundred feet away. Of all the picturesque in nature, what is there, after all, that so wins one's deeper sympathies as the ever-changing pictures of rustic lanes or road-sides, with their weather-beaten walls and fences, and their rambling growth of weeds and creeping vines? There is a sense of near companionship awakened by these charming way-side pastorals that accompany you in your saunterings, that reach out to touch you as you pass a sense of friendly fellowship that invests them with a distinctive charm known to them alone. Even in this lane at the foot of the knoll below us, see the brilliant luxuriance of clustered bitter-sweet draping the side of that clump of cedars! It is only an indication of the beauty that envelops this lane for a full half mile beyond. Every angle of its rude rail fence incloses a lovely pastoral, each a surprise and a contrast to its neighbor. See how the cool gray rails are relieved against that rich dark background of dense olive juniper, how they hide among the prickly foliage! Look at that low-hanging branch that so exquisitely conceals the lowest rail as it emerges from its other side, and spreads out among the creeping briers that wreathe the ground with their shining leaves of crimson and deep bronze! Could any art more daringly concentrate a rhapsody of color than nature has here done in bringing up that gorgeous spray of scarlet sumac, whose fern-like pinnate leaves are so richly massed against that background of dark evergreens? Another jutting corner, and we confront a swaying mass of gold and purple, that magnificent regal combination of graceful golden-rod and asters that glorifies our autumn. Did you ever notice along the road that delicious whiff that comes to you every now and then-that pungent breath of the sweet-fern? We get it now, the air is laden with it, from the dark green beds across the road. The sweet-fern, as I remember it, was the simpler's panacea and the small boy's joy-an aromatic shrub whose inhaled fumes, together with those of its cornsilk rival, seem destined by sympathetic Nature as a preparatory tonic to the more ambitious fumigation of after-years. Many a time have I sat upon this bank and tried to imagine in my domestic product the racy flavor of the famed Havana. Between old Aunt Huldy, with her mania for the simples, and the demand of the village boys, I wonder there is any of it left. But Aunt Huldy has long since died; all her "yarbs" and "yarrer tea" and "paowerful good stimmilants" could not give her the lease of eternal earthly life which she said lurked in the "everlastin' flaowers." She knew every herb that grew, but her great stand-by was sweet-fern. She smoked it, she chewed it, she drank it, and even wore a little bag of it around her neck "to charm away the rheumatiz." Following the road we now descend into a long, low stretch, hedged in between two tall banks of alder, overtopped with interwoven tangles of clematis, with its cloudy autumn clusters -that graceful vine which, like the dandelion, is even more beautiful in death than in the fullness of its bloom. And so, indeed, are nearly all those plants whose final state nature has endowed with feathery wings to lift them from the earth. When has this swamp milkweed by the road-side looked so fair as now, with its bursting pods and silky seeds-those little waifs thrown out upon the world with every passing breeze. How tenderly they seem to cling to the little cozy home where they have been so snugly cradled and |