Let us rest our paddles, and look round us, while the idle motion sways our light skiff onward, now half-embayed among the lily-pads, now lazily gliding over intervening gulfs.  There is a great deal going on in these waters and their fringing woods and meadows.  All the summer long, the pond is bordered with successive walls of flowers.  In early spring emerge the yellow catkins of the swamp-willow, first; then the long tassels of the graceful alders expand and droop, till they weep their yellow dust upon the water; then come the birch-blossoms, more tardily; then the downy leaves and white clusters of the medlar or shadbush (Amelanchier Canadensis of Gray); these dropping, the roseate chalices of the mountain-laurel open; as they fade into melancholy brown, the sweet Azalea uncloses; and before its last honeyed blossom has trailed down, dying, from the stem, the more fragrant Clethra starts out above, the button-bush thrusts forth its merry face amid wild roses, and the Clematis waves its sprays of beauty.  Mingled with these grow, lower, the spiraeas, white and pink, yellow touch-me-not, fresh white arrowhead, bright blue vervain and skullcap, dull snakehead, gay monkey-flower, coarse eupatoriums, milk-weeds, golden-rods, asters, thistles, and a host beside.  Beneath, the brilliant scarlet cardinal-flower begins to palisade the moist shores; and after its superb reflection has passed away from the waters, the grotesque witch-hazel flares out its narrow yellow petals amidst the October leaves, and so ends the floral year.  There is not a week during all these months, when one cannot stand in the boat and wreathe garlands of blossoms from the shores.

These all crowd around the brink, and watch, day and night, the opening and closing of the water-lilies.  Meanwhile, upon the waters, our queen keeps her chosen court, nor can one of these mere land-loving blossoms touch the hem of her garment.  In truth, she bears no sister near her throne.  There is but this one species among us, Nymphaea odorata.  The beautiful little rose-colored Nymphaea sanguinea, which once adorned the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, was merely an occasional variety of costume.  She has, indeed, an English half-sister, Nymphaea alba, less beautiful, less fragrant, but keeping more fashionable hours,—­not opening (according to Linnaeus) till seven, nor closing till four.  Her humble cousin, the yellow Nuphar, keeps commonly aloof, as becomes a poor relation, though created from the selfsame mud,—­a fact which Hawthorne has beautifully moralized.  The prouder Nelumbium, a second-cousin, lineal descendant of the sacred bean of Pythagoras, keeps aloof, through pride, not humility, and dwells, like a sturdy democrat, in the Far West.