_2nd Off_. Listen, Andre! This is beautiful! There's some cascade not
far hence, worth searching for.
_Andre_. Yes, just in among those trees you'll find a perfect
drawing-room, carpeted, canopied, and dark as twilight; its verdant
seats broidered with violets and forget-me-nots; and all untenanted it
seems, nay, deserted rather, for the music wastes on the lonely air, as
if the fairy that kept state there, in gossip mood had stolen down some
neighboring aisle, and would be home anon. I would have bartered all the
glory of this campaign for leave to stretch myself on its mossy bank,
for a soft hour or so.
_Mor_. Ay, with Chaucer or the "Faery Queen." If one could people these
lovely shades with the fresh creations of the olden time, knight and
lady, and dark enchantress and Paynim fierce, instead of Yankee rebels--
_Andre_. 'Twere well your faery-work were of no lasting mould, or these
same Yankee rebels would scarce thank you for your pains,--they hold
that race in little reverence. Alas,--
No grot divine, or wood-nymph haunted glen,
Or stream, or fount, shall these young shades e'er know.
No beautiful divinity, stealing afar
Through darkling nooks, to poet's eye thence gleam;
With mocking mystery the dim ways wind,
They reach not to the blessed fairy-land
That once all lovely in heaven's stolen light,
To yearning thoughts, in the deep green-wood grew.
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