e long buried past; and, like some magical spell,
arouse from its sleep all the beauteous and gay splendor of those
hours. As the clear, measured sound floated to my ear, I heard also,
again, the vanished music of happy childhood--that elysian time which
cannot last for any of us. I do not know what the song was--whether
some slow, sad negro melody, or loud-sounding hymn, such as the
forests ring with at camp-meetings; but I know what the murmuring and
dying sound brought to me again, living, splendid, instinct with a
thoughtful but perfect joy. Fairyland never, with its silver-twisted,
trumpet-flower-like bugles, rolled such a merry-mournful music to the
friendly stars! I love to have the old days back again--back, with
their very tints, and atmosphere, and sounds and odors--now no more
the same. Thus I love to hear the young girl's low, merry song,
floating from the window of a country-house, half-broken by the
cicala, the swallow's twitter, or the rustling leaves;--I love to hear
the joyous ripple of the harpsichord, bringing back, with some old
music, times when that merry music stamped the hours, and took
possession of them--in the heart--forever more! I love a ringing horn,
even the stage-horn--now, alas! no more a sound of real life, only
memory!--the thousand murmurs of a country evening; the far, clear cry
of wild-geese from the clouds; the tinkling bells of cattle; every
sound which brings again a glimpse of the far-glimmering plains of
youth. And that is why, standing on this round knoll, beneath the
merrily-rustling cherry-trees, and listening to the murmurous song,
I heard my boyhood speak to me, and felt again the old breath on my
brow. The sun died away across the old swaying woods; the rattling
hone upon the scythe; the measured sweep; the mellow music--all were
gone away. The day was done, and the long twilight came--twilight,
which mixes the crimson of the darkling west, the yellow moonlight in
the azure east, and the red glimmering starlight overhead, into one
magic light. And so we went home merrily, with pleasant thoughts and
talk; such pleasant thoughts I wish to all. Thus wrote one who ever
delighted in the rural evenings and their sounds;--and thus listened
the young persons, whose conversation, light and trivial though it
seem, we have not thought it a loss of time to chronicle, from morn
till eve.

They gazed with quiet pleasure upon the lovely landscape, and listened
to the negroes as they sa