Now oft it happ'd when morning task was done
And for the virgins of her household made
And lotted each her toil; while yet the sun
Was young, fair Egla to a woody shade,
Loved to retreat; there, in the fainting hour
Of sultry noon the burning sunbeam fell
Like a warm twilight; so bereft of power,
It gained an entrance thro' the leafy bower;
That scarcely shrank the tender lilly bell
Tranquil and lone in such a light to be,
How sweet to sense and soul!--the form recline
Forgets it ere felt pain; and reverie,
Sweet mother of the muses, heart and soul are thine. [FN#9]
[FN#9] Every one talks and reads of groves, but it is impossible
for those who never felt it, to conceive the effect of such a
situation in a warm climate. In this island the woods which are
naturally so interwoven with vines as to be impervious to a human
being, are in some places, cleared and converted into nurseries for
the young coffee-trees which remain sheltered from the sun and wind
till sufficiently grown to transplant. To enter one of these
"semilleros," as they are here called, at noon day, produces an
effect like that anciently ascribed to the waters of Lethe. After
sitting down upon the trunk of a fallen cedar or palm-tree, and
breathing for a moment, the freshness of the air and the odour of the
passion flower, which is one of the most abundant, and certainly the
most beautiful of the climate; the noise of the trees, which are
continually kept in motion by the trade winds; the fluttering and
various notes, though not musical, of the birds; the loftiness of the
green canopy, for the trunks of the trees are bare to a great height,
and seem like pillars supporting the thick mass of leaves above; and
the rich mellow light which the intense rays of the sun, thus
impeded, produce; have altogether such an effect that one
involuntarily forgets every thing but the present, and it requires a
strong effort to rise and leave the place.