And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent, in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In Nature, from the broad, majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
THE GLORY OF GOD IN NATURE.
The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter."-PSALM 1xxiv. 16, 17.
(HOU art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see:
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from thee!
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine.
When day with farewell beam delays,
Among the opening clouds of even,
And we can almost think we gaze
Through golden vistas into heaven;
Those hues that mark the day's decline,
So soft, so radiant, Lord, are thine.
When Night, with wings of stormy gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with a thousand eyes,
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord, are thine.
When youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,
And every flower the summer wreathes,
Is born beneath that kindling eye
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things bright and fair are thine.
THERE IS A TONGUE IN EVERY LEAF.
(HERE is a tongue in every leaf,—
A voice in every rill;—
A voice that speaketh everywhere,
In flood and fire, through earth and air!
A tongue that's never still!
'Tis the Great Spirit, wide diffused
Through every thing we see,
That with our spirits communeth
Of things mysterious-life and death,
Time and eternity!
I see him in the blazing sun,
And in the thunder cloud;
I hear him in the mighty roar
That rusheth through the forests hoar
When winds are piping loud.
I see him, hear him, every where,
In all things-darkness, light,
Silence, and sound; but, most of all,
When slumber's dusky curtains fall,
At the dead hour of night.
I feel him in the silent dews,
By grateful earth betrayed;
I feel him in the gentle showers,
The soft south wind, the breath of flowers,
The sunshine and the shade.
And yet (ungrateful that I am!)
I've turned in silent mood
From all these things, whereof he said,
When the great whole was finished,
That they were "very good."
My sadness on the loveliest things
Fell like unwholesome dew ;-
The darkness that encompassed me,
The gloom I felt so palpably,
Mine own dark spirit threw.
Yet was he patient-slow to wrath,
Though every day provoked
By selfish, pining discontent,
Acceptance cold or negligent,
And promises revoked;
And still the same rich feast was spread
For my insensate heart!—
Not always so-I woke again,
To join creation's rapturous strain,
"O Lord, how good thou art!"
The clouds drew up, the shadows fled,
The glorious sun broke out,
And love, and hope, and gratitude,
Dispelled that miserable mood
Of darkness and of doubt.
TRANGER! if e'er thine ardent step hath traced
The northern realms of ancient Caledon,
Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath
placed,
By lake and cataract, her lonely throne;
Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known,
Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high,
Listing where from the cliffs the torrents thrown
Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry,
And with the sounding lake, and with the moaning sky.
Yes! 'twas sublime but sad.—The loneliness
Loaded thy heart, the desert tired thine eye;
And strange and awful fears began to press
Thy bosom with a stern solemnity.
Then hast thou wished some woodman's cottage nigh,
Something that showed of life though low and mean;
Glad sight, its curling wreaths of smoke to spy.
Glad sound, its cock's blithe carol would have been, Or children whooping wild beneath the willows green.
Such are the scenes where savage grandeur wakes
An awful thrill that softens into sighs;
Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch's lakes:
In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise:
Or farther, where, beneath the northern skies,
Chides wild Loch Eribol his caverns hoar-
But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize
Of desert dignity to that dread shore,
That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Corisken roar.
A HIGHLAND GLEN.
O whom belongs this valley fair,
That sleeps beneath the filmy air,
Even like a living dream?
Silent-as infant at the breast—
Save a still sound that speaks of rest,
That streamlet's murmuring!
The heavens appear to love this vale;
Here clouds with unseen motion sail,
Or 'mid the silence lie!
By that blue arch this beauteous earth,
'Mid evening's hour of dewy mirth,
Seems bound unto the sky.
Oh! that this lovely vale were mine—
Then from glad youth to calm decline
My years would gently glide;
Hope would rejoice in endless dreams,
And memory's oft returning gleams
By peace be sanctified.
There would unto my soul be given,
From presence of that gracious heaven
And thoughts would come of mystic mood,
To make, in this deep solitude,
Eternity of time!
And did I ask to whom belonged
This vale ?—I feel that I have wronged
Nature's most gracious soul!
She spreads her glories o'er the earth,
And all her children from her birth
Are joint heirs of the whole !
Yea! long as Nature's humblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch, and his throne
Is built amid the skies.
N lofty mountains roaming,
O'er bleak perennial snow,
Where cataracts are foaming,
And raging north-winds blow:
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