Richly doth the moon now kindle up the scene with her pure silver glory. How deliciously her delicate dreamy light rests upon the quiet fields, the motionless forests, and the slumbering lake. How sweet the harmony between heaven and earth. The sky is flooded with the rich radiance, quenching the stars, save one or two that sparkle near the orbed source of all this brightness. And on the lake is a broad path of splendor, gorgeous as the angel-trodden ladder witnessed by the patriarch in his dreams. Our little hollow is lit up with matchless brilliancy. It is absolutely filled with the moon’s smile. Let us examine some of the small effects of the light. There is a shifting, dazzling streak upon each ripple as it dances up—the side of yon pine, this way, is covered all over with bright tassels, whilst the other portion, except its dim outline, is lost in gloom. There is an edging of pearl woven along the outer fringes of this hemlock, gleaming from the jet-blackness enveloping the stem. This great crouching laurel, which Ike Davis and I saw looking like one giant bouquet of snowy blossoms, seems now, in each individual leaf, to be sculptured from ivory, or as if the blossoms had all been melted into a liquid mantle of light. The moss underneath that bank seems covered with rich net-work; whilst beside it, on that little glade, is a broad space of pure lustre, like a silver carpet spread there by Titania for the dance of her sprites. And there is another radiance, too, besides that of the moon—the fire-flies. Every dark covert is alive with the gold-green sparklers, winking and blinking very industriously, as if they had only a short time to work in, and were determined to make the most of it. There are multitudinous voices also all around us—on the ground, and in the branches—crickets—tree-toads—now and then a wakeful grasshopper—and the whet-saw, or cross-bill, tolling out its clear metallic notes from the depth of the forest.