7

(4)
fevour of an ardent heart--a fevour, which alas has to often destroyed
its fresh blown hopes, like the heat of the noon day sun
which withers the flowers of the morning.

Days of my youth! ye are indeed gone, but ye linger yet on my mind,
in hues as bright & fair as that glow, which still begins on the horizon.
Dear days! ye are all reflected in memory's mystic glass, as vividly
as if ye had not yet passed away. Magic power! which can thus restore
the scenes of days of other years, obliterating all that is painful
& cloathing them in more than their original beauty.--
Yes, you restore those fairy visions,
that one were mine; restore them freed from that alley
which is ever mingled with regalities--Stay! ye sweet semblances
of departed hours, stay! & illuminate the gloom of the present!
The present! what is it? Yesterday it was the future--Tomorrow it shall
be the past. Whether laden with joy & sorrow, it is equally evanescent & is unworthy
of hope or of regret. Speed then ye moments, it matters not whether ye be
arrayed in brightness or in gloom since your duration is so short. Ye may carry
with you in your rapid flight, the richest joys, the sweetest pleasures earth
can give--yes even these still dearer, with which hope once
promised, but ye cannot rob me of those which bloom beyond that smiling
sky." As these thoughts filled the mind of Julia, her countenance kindled
with rapture, her eyes seemed as if they penetrated the blue vault
on which they were intently fixed, her hands were clasped upon her bosom
Her full heart was relieved by sighs which seemed to carry
her soul to heaven, & by the unfelt tears which rolled over her uplifted
face.

Who that has ever enjoyed this delicious trance of feeling, has
not regreted to be awakened, & forced to return again to the
common place realties of life? "Days woven with threads of silk & gold
exclaimed Madam Sevigne, for she knew no happiness but such as
courts could give--"Days woven of light & fragrance" exclaims the devotee
of nature, whose joys are too pure & etherial to be compared with even
the richest materials of earth.--