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النشر الإلكتروني

Down the broad Vale of Tears, afar
The spectral camp is fled;

Faith shineth as a morning star,—

Our ghastly fears are dead.

LONGFELLOW.

FIRST SOUNDS IN EDEN.

WHAT was't awaken'd first the untried ear
Of that sole man who was all humankind?
Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind,
Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere ?
The four mellifluous streams which flow'd so near,
Their lulling murmurs all in one combined?
The note of bird unnamed? The startled hind
Bursting the brake-in wonder, not in fear
Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground
Send forth mysterious melody to greet
The gracious presence of immaculate feet?
Did viewless seraphs rustle all around,
Making sweet music out of air as sweet?
Or his own voice awake him with its sound?
HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

LINES ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK IN JANUARY.

SING on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough;
Sing on, sweet bird; I listen to thy strain:
See, aged winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blithe carol clears his furrow'd brow.

So in lone poverty's dominion drear,

Sits meek content with light unanxious heart, Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.

I thank thee, Author of this opening day!

Thou whose bright sun now gilds the orient skies!
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys,

What wealth could never give nor take away !

Yet come, thou child of poverty and care;

The mite high heaven bestow'd, that inite with thee I'll

share.

BURNS.

THE WONDERS OF THE CREATION.

FAR as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends :
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass.
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood.
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
"Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near !

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Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison, and to choose their food!
Prescient the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,
Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?

THE WONDERS OF THE CREATION.

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Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore

Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the councils, states the certain day?
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:
But as he framed a whole, the whole to bless,
On mutual wants built mutual happiness;
So from the first, eternal order ran,

And creature link'd to creature, man to man.

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Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake-
Go, from the creatures thy instructions take:
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beast the physic of the field.
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here too all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aërial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ants' republic, and the realm of bees :
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy without confusion know;
And these for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain.

POPE.

L

A CHURCHYARD DREAM.

METHOUGHT that in a burial-ground,

One still, sad, vernal day,
Upon a little daisied mound,

I, in a slumber, lay;

While faintly through my dream I heard

The hymning of that holy bird,

Who with more gushing sweetness sings,

The higher up in heaven float his unwearied wings!

In that my mournful reverie,

Such song of heavenly birth

The voice seem'd of a soul set free

From this imprisoning earth;
Higher and higher still it soar'd,
A thrilling rapture that adored,
Till vanish'd song and singer blest
In the blue depths of everlasting rest!

Just then a child, in sportive glce,
Came gliding o'er the graves,
Like a lone bird that on the sea
Floats dallying with the waves ;
Upon the lovely flowers awhile
She pour'd the beauty of her smile,

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