Still on the seeds of all he made

The rose of beauty burns;

Through times that wear, and forms that fade,

Immortal youth returns.

The black ducks mounting from the lake,

The pigeon in the pines,

The bittern's boom, a desert make

Which no false art refines.

Down in yon watery nook,

Where bearded mists divide,

The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
The sires of Nature, hide.

Aloft, in secret veins of air,

Blows the sweet breath of song,

O, few to scale those uplands dare,

Though they to all belong!

See thou bring not to field or stone
The fancies found in books;

Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,

To brave the landscape's looks.

And if, amid this dear delight,
My thoughts did home rebound,
I well might reckon it a slight
To the high cheer I found.

66

Hung dim and still about the house of prayer;" Softly among the limbs,

Turning the leaves of hymns,

I hear the winds, and ask if God were there.

No voice replied, but while I listening stood,

Sweet peace made holy hushes through the wood.

With ruddy, open hand,

I saw the wild rose stand

Beside the green gate of the summer hills,

And pulling at her dress,

I cried, "Sweet hermitess,

Hast thou beheld Him who the dew distils?"
No voice replied, but while I listening bent,
Her gracious beauty made my heart content.

And seeth all things," to myself I mused; "Hast thou beheld Him, then,

Who hides himself from men

In that great power through nature interfused?”
No speech made answer, and no sign appeared,
But in the silence I was soothed and cheered.

Waking one time, strange awe
Thrilling my soul, I saw

A kingly splendor round about the night;
Such cunning work the hand

Of spinner never planned,·

The finest wool may not be washed so white. "Hast thou come out of Heaven?"

I asked; and lo!

The snow was all the answer of the snow.

Then my heart said, Give o’er;

Question no more, no more!

The wind, the snow-storm, the wild hermit flower, The illuminated air,

The pleasure after prayer,

Proclaim the unoriginated Power!

The mystery that hides him here and there
Bears the sure witness he is everywhere.

Alice Carey

NATURE.

HE bubbling brook doth leap when I come by,

TH

Because my feet find measure with its call;
The birds know when the friend they love is nigh,
For I am known to them both great and small;
The flower that on the lonely hill-side grows

Expects me there when Spring its bloom has given ;
And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows,
And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven;
For he who with his Maker walks aright,
Shall be their lord as Adam was before;
His ear shall catch each sound with new delight,
Each object wear the dress that then it wore ;
And he, as when erect in soul he stood,
Hear from his Father's lips that all is good.

Jones Very.

THE BROOK AND THE WAVE.

THE

HE brooklet came from the mountain,
As sang the bard of old,

Running with feet of silver
Over the sands of gold!

Far away in the briny ocean

There rolled a turbulent wave,

Now singing along the sea-beach,

Now howling along the cave.

And the brooklet has found the billow,

Though they flowed so far apart,

And has filled with its freshness and sweetness

That turbulent, bitter heart!

H. W. Longfellow.

THE MOUNTAINS.

DEEP, exulting freedom of the hills!

O summits vast, that to the climbing view In naked glory stand against the blue !

O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills Heaven's amethystine bowl! O speeding streams, That foam and thunder from the cliffs below!

O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow, And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams! O stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath Of every tempest, sharp and icy horns, And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns, And broad, dim wonders of the world beneath! summon ye, and 'mid the glare which fills The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills.

I

Bayard Taylor.

BESIDE A BROOK.

Y way in opening dawn I took

MY

Between the hills, beside a brook:

The peaks one sun was climbing o'er;
The dewdrops showed ten millions more.