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THE LOVE OF NATURE.

The clouds weep o'er the fallen world.

E'en as repentant love;

Ere to the blessed breeze unfurled
They fade in light above.

The sky it is a temple's arch,
The blue and wavy air

Is glorious with the spirit-march
Of messengers at prayer.

The gentle moon, the kindling sun,

The many stars are given

As shrines to burn earth's incense on,
The altar-fires of Heaven,

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
To raise his being, and serene his soul,
Can Man forbear to join the general smile
Of Nature? Can fierce passion vex his breast,
Where every gale is peace and every grove
Is melody? Hence from the beauteous walks
Of flowery Spring, ye sordid sons of earth,
Hard and unfeeling of another's woe,

Or only lavish to yourselves; away!

But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought,
Of all his works, creative bounty burns

With warmest beam; and on your open front,
And liberal eye, sits-from his dark retreat
Inviting modest want. Nor, till invoked,
Can restless goodness wait; your active search
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored ;

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Like silent-working heaven, surprising oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good.
For you the roving spirit of the wind

Blows spring abroad; for you the teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world;
And the sun sheds his kindest rays for you,
Ye flowers of human race! In these green days
Reviving sickness lifts her languid head;
Life flows afresh, and young-eyed health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss

Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings. THOMSON.

IV. THE DAISY,

ON BEING TURNED UP WITH THE PLOUGH.

* *

"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
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm;

Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield,
But thou, beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!

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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 happiness which it diffuses ?"-Brown's Lectures.

Like an actual colour bright
Flushing from the paper's white.
If the rains that do us wrong
Come to keep the winter long,
And deny us thy sweet looks.
I can love thee, sweet in books;
Love thee in the poet's pages,
Where they keep thee green for ages;
May's in Milton, May's in Prior,
May's in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May's in all the Italian books;
She has old and modern nooks,
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves
In happy places they call shelves,
With a drapery thick with blooms,
And will rise and dress your rooms.
Come, ye rains, then, if you will,
May's at home, and with me still;
But come rather thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.

LEIGH HUNT.

VI. FIELD FLOWERS.

"SHAKSPEARE, Homer, Dante, and Chaucer, saw the splendour of meaning that plays over the visible world; knew that a tree had another use than for apples, and corn another than for meal, and the ball of the earth, than for tillage and roads: and these things bore a second and finer harvest to the mind, being emblems of its thoughts, and conveying in all their natural history a certain mute commentary on human life."-Emerson's " Representative Men."

YE field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true,
Yet, wildings of Nature, I doat upon you,

For ye waft me to summers of old,

When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight,
And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight,
Like treasures of silver and gold.

I love you for lulling me back into dreams

Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams—
And of birchen glades breathing their balm,
While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote,
And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon's note,
Made music that sweetened the calm.

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune

Than ye speak to my heart, little wildings of June;
Of old ruinous castles ye tell,

Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find,
When the magic of Nature first breathed on my mind,
And your blossoms were part of her spell.

Even now what affections the violet awakes!
What loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes,
Can the wild water lily restore!

What landscapes I read in the primrose's looks,
And what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks,
In the vetches that tangled the shore.

Earth's cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear,
Ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear,

Had scathed my existence's bloom;

Once I welcome you more, in life's passionless stage;
With the visions of youth to revisit my age,
And I wish you to grow on my tomb.

183

CAMPBELL.

VII. THE VOICE OF SPRING.

"THE change of seasons well deserves our admiration. It cannot be attributed to chance, for in fortuitous events there can be neither order nor stability. Now in all countries of the earth, the seasons succeed each other with the same regularity as the nights do the days, and change the appearance of the earth precisely at the appointed times. We see it successively adorned, sometimes with herbs and leaves, sometimes with flowers, and sometimes with fruits. Afterwards, it is deprived of its ornaments, and appears in a state of death till spring comes, and gives it, so to speak, a resurrection. Spring, summer, and autumn, nourish men and animals, by an abundant provision of fruits; and although nature appears dead in winter, yet that season is not without its blessings, for it moistens and fertilizes the earth; and by that preparation the ground becomes capable of producing plants and fruits in due season."-Sturm.

I COME, I come! ye have called me long
I come o'er the mountains with light and song;
Ye may trace my step o'er the waking earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.