Low in the violet's breast of blue For treasured food they sink; They know the flowers that hold the dew They glide-King Solomon might gaze And once- —it is a grandame's tale, A home had they-the clustering race- All blossoms breathed around the place, Of all the valleys of the west! But so it was, that on a day, When summer built her bowers, The waxen wanderers ceased to play Around the cottage flowers! No hum was heard, no wing would roam- This lasted long; no tongue could tell What binds the soldier to his cell, It lasted long-it fain would last, Then sternly went that woman old, She took-she hid that blessed bread, She bare it to her distant home, To lure the wanderers forth to roam, But lo! at morning-tide a sign For wondering eyes to trace! They found above that bread a shrine, Rear'd by the harmless race! They brought their walls from bud and flower, They built bright roof and beamy tower! Was it a dream, or did they hear, Float from those golden cells, A low sweet psalm, that grieved within, Was it a dream? 'Tis sweet no less; Set not the vision free. Long let the lingering legend bless The nation of the bee,— So shall they bear upon their wings A parable of sacred things. So shall they teach, when men blaspheme Or sacrament or shrine, That humbler things may fondly dream Of mysteries Divine; And holier hearts than his may beat From "Reeds shaken with the Wind," Second Cluster. PLEASURE FROM THE STUDY OF NATURE. WHAT though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights For him the Spring Distils her dews, and from the silken gem With blooming gold and blushes like the morn. AKENSIDE. Prof. Stewart beautifully observes, in his Philosophical Essays, p. 509: "When a man has succeeded, at length, in cultivating his imagination, things the most familiar and unnoticed disclose charms invisible to him before. The same objects and events which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the powers and capacities of the soul; the contrast between the present and past serving only to enhance and to endear so unlooked-for an acquisition. What Gray has finely said of the pleasures of vicissitude, conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man, who, after having lost, in vulgar occupation and vulgar amusement, his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced, at last, to a new heaven and a new earth. The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, THE GLORY OF GOD IN CREATION. THE GOD of nature and of grace, His goodness through the earth we trace, Behold this fair and fertile globe, Lift to the arch of heaven your eye, He bows the heavens,-the mountains stand 'Tis Eden where He trod. The forests in His strength rejoice; Here, on the hills, He feeds His herds, His praise is warbled by the birds; -Oh! could we catch their strains! Mount with the lark, and bear our song Or, with the nightingale, prolong Our numbers through the night! In every stream His bounty flows, In every breeze His Spirit blows, His blessings fall in plenteous showers That teems with foliage, fruits, and flowers, If GOD has made this world so fair, MONTGOMERY. ANIMALS OF THE EAST. WHERE sacred Ganges pours along the plain, A species of deer, known in India by the name of the Ganges stag. |