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POEMS OF LOVE OF NATURE.

I. THE STUDY OF NATURE.

"THERE is something in the contemplation of general laws which powerfully persuades us to merge individual feeling, and to commit ourselves unreservedly to their disposal; while the observations of the calm energetic regularity of nature, the immense scale of her operations, and the certainty with which her ends are attained, tend irresistibly to tranquillize and reassure the mind, and render it less accessible to repining, selfish and turbulent emotions. And this it does, not by debasing our nature into weak compliances and abject submission to circumstances, but by filling us, as from an inward spring, with a sense of nobleness and power, which enables us to rise superior to them, by showing us our strength and innate dignity, and by calling upon us for the exercise of those powers and faculties by which we are susceptible of the comprehension of so much greatness, and which form, as it were, the link between ourselves and the best and noblest benefactors of our species, with whom we hold communion in thoughts and participate in discoveries which have raised them above their fellow-mortals, and brought them nearer to their Creator."-Sir John Herschel.

NATURE never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life
Shall e'er prevail against us or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstacies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!

WORDSWORTH.

II. THE WORSHIP OF NATURE.

"THE world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and contemplated hy man; it is the debt of our reason we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being beasts; without this, the world is still as though it had not been, or as it was before the sixth day, when as yet there was not a creature that could conceive, or say there was a world. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works; those highly magnifying him whose judicious inquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration."-Sir Thomas Browne.

THE ocean looketh up to heaven,
As 'twere a living thing;
The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshipping.

They kneel upon the sloping sand
As bends the human knee,
A beautiful and tireless band,
The priesthood of the sea!

They pour the glittering treasures out
Which in the deep have birth,
And chant their awful hymns about
The watching hills of earth.

The green earth sends its incense up
From every mountain-shrine,
From every flower and dewy cup
That greeteth the sunshine.

The mists are lifted from the rills,
Like the white wing of prayer;
They lean above the ancient hills,
As doing homage there.

The forest tops are lowly cast
O'er breezy hill and glen,
As if a prayerful spirit passed
On nature as on men,

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,

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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.

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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;

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 PLOUGI.

* *

"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.

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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.

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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 hap piness which it diffuses?"-Brown's Lectures.

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