Where, thought I, foolish one, be the terrors of the wilderness,
which troubled thy daily thoughts and thy nightly dreams! Where be the
gloomy shades, and desolate mountains, and the wild beasts, with their
dismal howlings and rages! Here all looked peaceful, and bespoke
comfort and contentedness. Even the great woods which climbed up the
hills in the distance looked thin and soft, with their faint young
leaves a yellowish-gray, intermingled with pale, silvery shades,
indicating, as my cousin saith, the different kinds of trees, some of
which, like the willow, do put on their leaves early, and others late,
like the oak, with which the whole region aboundeth. A sweet, quiet
picture it was, with a warm sun, very bright and clear, shining over it,
and the great sea, glistening with the exceeding light, bounding the
view of mine eyes, but bearing my thoughts, like swift ships, to the
land of my birth, and so uniting, as it were, the New World with the
Old. Oh, thought I, the merciful God, who reneweth the earth and maketh
it glad and brave with greenery and flowers of various hues and smells,
and causeth his south winds to blow and his rains to fall, that seed-
time may not fail, doth even here, in the ends of his creation, prank
and beautify the work of his hands, making the desert places to rejoice,
and the wilderness to blossom as the rose.
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