“Ah! that to some poet, whose lyre had never lost a string, to whom mortality, kinder than is her custom, had vouchsafed a day whose down had been untouched,—­that to him these plains might enter, and flow forth in airy song.  And you, forests, under whose symmetrical shields of dark green the colors of the fawns move, like the waters of the river under its spears,—­its cimeters of flag, where, in gleaming circles of steel, the breasts of the wood-pigeons flash in the playful sunbeam, and many sounds, many notes of no earthly music, come over the well-relieved glades,—­should not your depth pass into that poet’s heart,—­in your depths should he not fuse his own?”

The other letters show the painter’s eye, as this the poet’s heart.

“Springfield, Illinois, May 20, 1840.

“Yesterday morning I left Griggsville, my knapsack at my back, pursued my journey all day on foot, and found so new and great delight in this charming country, that I must needs tell you about it.  Do you remember our saying once, that we never found the trees tall enough, the fields green enough.  Well, the trees are for once tall, and fair to look upon, and one unvarying carpet of the tenderest green covers these marvellous fields, that spread out their smooth sod for miles and miles, till they even reach the horizon.  But, to begin my day’s journey.  Griggsville is situated on the west side of the Illinois river, on a high prairie; between it and the river is a long range of bluffs which reaches a hundred miles north and south, then a wide river bottom, and then the river.  It was a mild, showery morning, and I directed my steps toward the bluffs.  They are covered with forest, not like our forests, tangled and impassable, but where the trees stand fair and apart from one another, so that you might ride every where about on horseback, and the tops of the hills are generally bald, and covered with green turf, like our pastures.  Indeed, the whole country reminds me perpetually of one that has been carefully cultivated by a civilized people, who had been suddenly removed from the earth, with all the works of their hands, and the land given again into nature’s keeping.  The solitudes are not savage; they have not that dreary, stony loneliness that used to affect me in our own country; they never repel; there are no lonely heights, no isolated spots, but all is gentle, mild, inviting,—­all is accessible.  In following this winding, hilly road for four or five miles, I think I counted at least a dozen new kinds of wild flowers, not timid, retiring little plants like ours, but bold flowers of rich colors, covering the ground in abundance.  One very common flower resembles our cardinal flower, though not of so deep a color, another is very like rocket or phlox, but smaller and of various colors, white, blue and purple.  Beautiful white lupines I find too, violets white and purple.  The vines and parasites are magnificent.  I followed on this road till I came to the prairie which skirts the river,