One beautiful feature was the return of the pigeons every afternoon to
their home. Every afternoon they came sweeping across the lawn,
positively in clouds, and with a swiftness and softness of winged
motion, more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew. Had I been
a musician, such as Mendelsohn, I felt that I could have improvised a
music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which should have
indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them. I will here
insert a few lines left at this house, on parting, which feebly indicate
some of the features.
Familiar to the childish mind were tales
Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea,
Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales
To soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery.
Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore,
And fancied that all hope of life was o'er;
But let him patient climb the frowning wall,
Within, the orange glows beneath the palm tree tall,
And all that Eden boasted waits his call.
Almost these tales seem realized to-day,
When the long dullness of the sultry way,
Where "independent" settlers' careless cheer
Made us indeed feel we were "strangers" here,
Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot,
On which "improvement" yet has made no blot,
But Nature all-astonished stands, to find
Her plan protected by the human mind.
Blest be the kindly genius of the scene;
The river, bending in unbroken grace,
The stately thickets, with their pathways green,
Fair lonely trees, each in its fittest place.
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