And
Then The Wind Would Lull And Die Away, And We Like It Fell Asleep
Again.
-
FRIDAY.
"The Boteman strayt
Held on his course with stayed stedfastnesse,
Ne ever shroncke, ne ever sought to bayt
His tryed armes for toylesome wearinesse;
But with his oares did sweepe the watry wildernesse."
^Spenser.^
-
"Summer's robe grows
Dusky, and like an oft-dyed garment shows."
^Donne.^
-
FRIDAY.
- * -
As we lay awake long before daybreak, listening to the rippling
of the river, and the rustling of the leaves, in suspense whether
the wind blew up or down the stream, was favorable or unfavorable
to our voyage, we already suspected that there was a change in
the weather, from a freshness as of autumn in these sounds. The
wind in the woods sounded like an incessant waterfall dashing and
roaring amid rocks, and we even felt encouraged by the unusual
activity of the elements. He who hears the rippling of rivers in
these degenerate days will not utterly despair. That night was
the turning-point in the season. We had gone to bed in summer,
and we awoke in autumn; for summer passes into autumn in some
unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf.
We found our boat in the dawn just as we had left it, and as if
waiting for us, there on the shore, in autumn, all cool and
dripping with dew, and our tracks still fresh in the wet sand
around it, the fairies all gone or concealed.
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