Up the long hill, and through the shadowy wood,
they strained, at full ten miles an hour, without a touch of the whip,
or even a word of Harry's well-known voice.
We reached the brow of the mountain, where there are four cleared
fields--whereon I once saw snow lie five feet deep on the tenth day of
April--and an old barn; and thence we looked back through the cold gray
gloom of an autumnal morning, three hours at least before the rising of
the sun, while the stars were waning in the dull sky, and the moon had
long since set, toward the Greenwood lake.
Never was there a stronger contrast, than between that lovely sheet of
limpid water, as it lay now--cold, dun, and dismal, like a huge plate of
pewter, without one glittering ripple, without one clear reflection,
surrounded by the wooded hills which, swathed in a dim mist, hung grim
and gloomy over its silent bosom--and its bright sunny aspect on the
previous day.
Adieu! fair Greenwood Lake! adieu! Many and blithe have been the hours
which I have spent around, and in, and on you--and it may well be I
shall never see you more--whether reflecting the full fresh greenery of
summer; or the rich tints of cisatlantic autumn; or sheeted with the
treacherous ice; but never, thou sweet lake, never will thy remembrance
fade from my bosom, while one drop of life-blood warms it; so art thou
intertwined with memories of happy careless days, that never can return
--of friends, truer, perhaps, though rude and humble, than all of
prouder seeming.
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