branches, full of sap and life! And there, just by the old mossy root,
is a superb tuft of primroses, with a yellow butterfly hovering over
them, like a flower floating on the air. What happiness to sit on this
tufty knoll, and fill my basket with the blossoms! What a renewal of
heart and mind! To inhabit such a scene of peace and sweetness is again
to be fearless, gay, and gentle as a child. Then it is that thought
becomes poetry, and feeling religion. Then it is that we are happy and
good. Oh, that my whole life could pass so, floating on blissful and
innocent sensation, enjoying in peace and gratitude the common blessings
of Nature, thankful above all for the simple habits, the healthful
temperament, which render them so dear! Alas! who may dare expect a life
of such happiness? But I can at least snatch and prolong the fleeting
pleasure, can fill my basket with pure flowers, and my heart with pure
thoughts; can gladden my little home with their sweetness; can divide my
treasures with one, a dear one, who cannot seek them; can see them when
I shut my eyes and dream of them when I fall asleep.

THE COPSE.

April 18th.--Sad wintry weather; a northeast wind; a sun that puts out
one's eyes, without affording the slightest warmth; dryness that chaps
lips and hands like a frost in December; rain that comes chilly and
arrowy like hail in January; nature at a dead pause; no seeds up in
the garden; no leaves out in the hedgerows; no cowslips swinging their
pretty bells in the fields; no nightingales in the dingles; no swallows
skimming round the great pond; no cuckoos (that ever I should miss that
rascally sonneteer!) in any part. Nevertheless there is something of a
charm in this wintry spring, this putting-back of the seasons. If the
flower-clock must stand still for a month or two, could it choose a
better time than that of the primroses and violets? I never remember
(and for such gauds my memory, if not very good for aught of wise or
useful, may be trusted) such an affluence of the one or such a duration
of the other. Primrosy is the epithet which this year will retain in
my recollection. Hedge, ditch, meadow, field, even the very paths and
highways, are set with them; but their chief habitat is a certain copse,
about a mile off, where they are spread like a carpet, and where I go to
visit them rather oftener than quite comports with the dignity of a lady
of mature age. I am going thither this very afternoon, and Ma