STUDY AND BEAUTIES OF WORKS OF NATURE.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns!

189

BYRON.

XIII. THE STUDY AND BEAUTIES OF THE WORKS OF

NATURE.

"To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the place beneath. The state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours, which make even the divisions of the day sensible to a keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants, punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for all."-R. W. Emerson.

O NATURE! all-sufficient! over all!

Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing passions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravished eye;

A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition; under closing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin,
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song;
And let me never, never stray from thee!

THOMSON.

XIV. LUCY.

"THE soul and nature are attuned together. Something within answers to all we witness without. When I look on the ocean in its might and tumult, my spirit is stirred, swelled. When it spreads out in peaceful blue waves, under a bright sky, it is dilated, yet composed. I enter into the spirit of the earth, and this is always good. Nature breathes nothing unkind. It expands, or calms, or softens us. Let us open our souls to its influences." Channing.

THREE years she grew, in sun, and shower,
Then Nature said, "a lovelier flower

On earth was never seen;

This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.

Myself will, to my darling, be

Both law and impulse

and with me

The girl, on rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power,

To kindle and restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That, wild with glee, across the lawn,
Or up the mountain springs;

And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence, and the calm-
Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds-their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see,

Even in the motions of the storm,

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear,

In many a secret place,

Where rivulets dance their wayward round;

And beauty, born of murmuring sound,

Shall pass into her face.

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts, to Lucy I will give,

While she and I together live,

Here in this happy dell."

AN APRIL DAY.

Thus Nature spake-The work was done-
How soon my Lucy's race was run:

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

191

WORDSWORTH.

XV. AN APRIL DAY.

"It was a lovely evening, in the spring time of the year; and in the soft stillness of the twilight, all nature was very calm and beautiful. The day had been fine and warm; but at the coming on of night the air grew cool, and in the mellowing distance, smoke was coming gently from the cottage chimneys. There were a thousand pleasant scents diffused around from young leaves and fresh buds; the cuckoo had been singing all day long, and was but just now hushed; the smell of earth, newly upturned-first breath of hope to the labourer, after his garden withered-was fragrant in the evening breeze. It was a time when most men cherish good resolves, and sorrow for the wasted past; when most men, looking on the shadows as they gather, think of that evening which must close on all, and that to-morrow which has none beyond."-Dickens.

WHEN the warm sun, that brings

Seed-time and havest, has returned again,
'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,

When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
No dark and many-folded clouds foretell

The coming on of storms.

From the earth's loosened mould,

The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.

The softly warbled song

Comes from the pleasant woods, and coloured wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that move along
The forest openings.

When the bright sunset fills

The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,

And wide the upland glows.

And when the eve is born,

In the blue lake the sky, o'er reaching far,
Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide,

Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,
And the fair trees look over, side by side,

And see themselves below.

Sweet April! many a thought

Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.

LONGFELLOW.

XVI. ODE ON THE SPRING.

"THERE is a certain melancholy in the evenings of early spring which is among those influences of nature the most universally recognised, the most difficult to explain. The silent stir of reviving life, which does not yet betray signs in the bud and blossom-only in a softer clearness in the air, a more lingering pause in the slowly lengthening day; a more delicate freshness and balm in the twilight atmosphere; a more lively yet still unquiet note from the birds, settling down into their coverts; the vague sense under all that hush, which still outwardly wears the bleak sterility of winter-of the busy change, hourly, momently, at work-renewing the youth of the world, reclothing with vigorous bloom the skeletons of things-all these messages from the heart of nature to the heart of man, may well affect and move us. But why with melancholy? No thought on our part connects and construes the low, gentle voices. It is not thought that replies and reasons: it is feeling that hears and dreams. Examine not, O child of man! examine not that mysterious melancholy with the hard eyes of thy reason; thou canst not impale it on the spikes of thy thorny logic, nor describe its enchanted circle by problems conned from thy schools. Borderer thyself of two worlds the dead and the living-give thine ear to the tones, bow thy soul to the shadows, that steal, in the season of change, from the dim border land."-Bulwer.

Lo! where the rosy-bosomed hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,

Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring
While whispering pleasures as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gathered fragrance fling.

ODE ON THE SPRING.

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader bower shade;

Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'er-canopies the glade,

Beside some water's rushy brink,
With me the muse shall sit and think,
(At ease reclined in rustic state),
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little, are the proud,
How indigent the great.

Still is the toiling hand of care;

The panting herds repose,

Yet, hark! how, through the peopled air,

The busy murmur glows!

The insect youth are on the wing,'
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon;
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim,
Quick-glancing to the sun.

To contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man;

And they that creep and they that fly
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay

But flutter through life's little day,
In fortune's varying colours drest;

Brushed by the hand of rough mischance,
Or chilled by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.

Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive, kind reply-

Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!

Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display;
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-
We frolic while 'tis May.

193

GRAY.

1. It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delightful existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive