POEMS OF LOVE OF NATURE. I. THE STUDY OF NATURE. "THERE is something in the contemplation of general laws which powerfully persuades us to merge individual feeling, and to commit ourselves unreservedly to their disposal; while the observations of the calm energetic regularity of nature, the immense scale of her operations, and the certainty with which her ends are attained, tend irresistibly to tranquillize and reassure the mind, and render it less accessible to repining, selfish and turbulent emotions. And this it does, not by debasing our nature into weak compliances and abject submission to circumstances, but by filling us, as from an inward spring, with a sense of nobleness and power, which enables us to rise superior to them, by showing us our strength and innate dignity, and by calling upon us for the exercise of those powers and faculties by which we are susceptible of the comprehension of so much greatness, and which form, as it were, the link between ourselves and the best and noblest benefactors of our species, with whom we hold communion in thoughts and participate in discoveries which have raised them above their fellow-mortals, and brought them nearer to their Creator."-Sir John Herschel. NATURE never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts WORDSWORTH. II. THE WORSHIP OF NATURE. "THE world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and contemplated hy man; it is the debt of our reason we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being beasts; without this, the world is still as though it had not been, or as it was before the sixth day, when as yet there was not a creature that could conceive, or say there was a world. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works; those highly magnifying him whose judicious inquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration."-Sir Thomas Browne. THE ocean looketh up to heaven, They kneel upon the sloping sand They pour the glittering treasures out The green earth sends its incense up The mists are lifted from the rills, The forest tops are lowly cast THE LOVE OF NATURE. The clouds weep o'er the fallen world, Ere to the blessed breeze unfurled They fade in light above. The sky it is a temple's arch, Is glorious with the spirit-march The gentle moon, the kindling sun, The many stars are given As shrines to burn earth's incense on, 227 JOHN G. WHITTIER. III. THE LOVE OF NATURE. "THERE are in the changeful aspects of nature so many analogies to the emotions of living beings that in animating poetically what exhibits to us these analogies we scarcely feel, till we reflect, that we are using metaphors, and that the clear and sunny sky, for example, is as little cheerful as that atmosphere of fogs and darkness through which the sun shines only enough to show us how thick the gloom must be which has resisted all the penetrating splendours of his beams. When nature is thus once animated by us, it is not wonderful if we sympathise with the living, that we should for the moment sympathise with it too as with some living thing. It is this sympathy with a cheerfulness which we have ourselves created that constitutes a great part of that moral delight and joy' which is so well described as able to drive all sadness but despair.' Brown's Lectures. WHEN Heaven and Earth, as if contending, vie But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought, With warmest beam; and on your open front, Like silent-working heaven, surprising oft Blows spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds Life flows afresh, and young-eyed health exalts Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings. THOMSON. IV. THE DAISY, ON BEING TURNED UP WITH THE PLOUGI. * * "How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb. The Persian in the far east, delights in their perfume, and writes his love in nosegays; while the Indian child of the far west claps his hands with glee, as he gathers the abundant blossoms-the illuminated scriptures of the prairies. * Flowers should deck the brow of the youthful bride, for they are in themselves a lovely type of marriage. They should twine round the tomb, for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection. They should festoon the altar, for their fragrance and their beauty ascend in perpetual worship before the Most High."-Lydia M. Child. MAY. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Scarce rear'd above the parent earth The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field, Unseen, alane. 229 BURNS. V. MAY. "In a fine morning in spring, amid sunshine and fragrance, and the thousand voices of joy that make the air one universal song of rapture, who is there that does not feel as if heaven and earth were truly glad at heart? and who does not sympathize with nature, as if with some living being diffusing happiness, and rejoicing in the hap piness which it diffuses?"-Brown's Lectures. |