NATURE

DEVELOPMENT IN NATURE.

၄၁@ALLED

LED up in sense we know no general plan:
Eons long past creative power went on,
Evolving lights and forces round the
throne,

And in the ordered nucleus of the plan
Blossomed and brightened the umbrageous span

Of this our world, beneath the Fates' fell care, The Tree of Life outspreading everywhere, And seedling fruits from short-lived blooms began.

Have these old mysteries ceased? from fiery steeps, From deepening swamps the mute snake writhed

along ;

Anon the bird screamed-then the furred beast creeps Growling; then Adam speaks erect and strong.

Shall there not rise again from Nature's deeps

One more, whose voice shall be the perfect song?

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.

جم

SCIENCE ABORTIVE.

ITH what vain speculations do we slake
The mental thirst! What matter, cycles

hence,

If Higher Creatures at mankind's expense Start into life with senses broad awake

To truths we only dream of; hands to shake
The pillars of the temple we but grope
Feebly about, who will gain entrance, cope
With the dæmon, and all prison-fetters break?

The churchyard dust a thousand times blown wide
Would see them, hear them not; the question men
Ten hundred various creeds and gods have raised

To answer, by Death's door we must abide;

Blinded by life itself, by fears half-crazed,

We raise another god and ask again!

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.

SELF-DECEPTION.

HERE'S a Seer's peak on Ararat, they say,
From which we can descry the better

world;

Not that supernal kingdom whence were hurled

The rebel-angels ere Creation's day,

But Eden-garden, Adam's first array,

Round which the Flood-waves stood back like a wall,

And whither still are sent the souls of all

The good dead, where the cherubim sing and play.

Dear lovely land we wait for and desire,

Whence fondly-loved lost faces look back still,
Waiting for us, so distant and apart;

But from the depths between what mists aspire-
What wrinkled sea rolls severing hill from hill--
Vision! 'tis but the reflex of the heart!

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.

PAST AND FUTURE.

AIR garden, where the man and woman dwelt,
And lov'd, and work'd, and where, in work's

reprieve,

The sabbath of each day, the restful eve, They sat in silence, with lock'd hands, and felt The voice which compass'd them, a-near, a-far, Which murmur'd in the fountains and the breeze, Which breathed in spices from the laden trees, And sent a silvery shout from each lone star. Sweet dream of Paradise! and if a dream,

One that has help'd us when our faith was weak; We wake, and still it holds us, but would seem

Before us, not behind,-the good we seek,The good from lowest root which waxes ever, The golden age of science and endeavour.

EMILY PFEIFFER.

FAITH.

OLLOW Me," Jesus said; and they uprose,
Peter and Andrew rose and followed Him,
Followed Him even to heaven through
death most grim,

And through a long hard life without repose,
Save in the grand ideal of its close.

"Take up your cross and come with Me," He

said;

And the world listens yet through all her dead, And still would answer had we faith like those.

But who can light again such beacon-fire!

With gladsome haste and with rejoicing souls

How would men gird themselves for the emprise? Leaving their black boats by the dead lake's mire, Leaving their slimy nets by the cold shoals,

Leaving their old oars, nor once turn their eyes.

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.