The Book of Nature Laid Open: In a Popular Survey of the Phenomena and Constitution of the Universe

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J. Milligan, 1822 - 281 pages

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Page 196 - Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun...
Page 68 - Nestling repair, and to the Thicket some; Some to the rude Protection of the Thorn Commit their feeble Offspring. The cleft Tree Offers its kind Concealment to a Few, Their Food its Insects, and its Moss their Nests. Others apart far in the grassy Dale, Or roughening Waste, their humble Texture weave.
Page 98 - The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills ; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound ; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Page 188 - Behold, fond man ! See here thy pictured life ; pass some few years, Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, Thy sober Autumn fading into age, And pale concluding Winter comes at last, And shuts the scene.
Page 29 - But who can paint Like Nature? Can imagination boast, Amid its gay creation, hues like hers ? Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows...
Page 218 - What an august ! what an amazing conception, if human imagination can conceive it, does this give of the works of the Creator ! Thousands of thousands of suns, multiplied without end, and ranged all around us, at immense distances from each other, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand worlds...
Page 226 - The master leans, removes the obstructing clay, Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe. White, through the neighbouring fields the sower stalks, With measured step, and liberal throws the grain Into the faithful bosom of the ground ; The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Page 212 - For minds of the first magnitude to launch In endless speculation, and adore ? One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine : And light us deep into the Deity ; How boundless in magnificence and might...
Page 67 - A bird's nest. Mark it well ! — within, without ; No tool had he that wrought — no knife to cut, No nail to fix — no bodkin to insert — No glue to join ; his little beak was all. And yet how neatly finished ! What nice hand. With every implement and means of art, And twenty years...
Page 83 - Which strike ev'n eyes incurious ; but each moss, Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank, Important in the plan of Him who framed This scale of beings; holds a rank which lost Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap Which nature's self would rue.

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