THE MELODIES OF MORNING.

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it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation, such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathens, as Epimenides the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love.—Bacon's Essays.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,

Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been:
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold

Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unrolled.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tired denizen,

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued:
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

BYRON.

XI. THE MELODIES OF MORNING.

"THERE is no phenomenon in nature more beautiful and splendid than the rising sun. The richest dress that human art can invent, the finest decorations, the most pompous equipage, the most superb ornaments in the palaces of kings, vanish and sink to nothing when compared with this beauty of nature. The sun appears with all the splendour of majesty, rising higher and higher, and the earth assumes a new aspect. Every creature rejoices and seems to receive a new life. The birds, with songs of joy, salute the source of light and day: every animal begins to move, and all feel themselves animated with new strength and spirit."-Sturm.

Bur who the melodies of morn can tell ;'

The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
In the lone valley; echoing far and wide,
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide;

The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove.*`
The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark;

Crowned with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings;
The whistling ploughman stalks afield: and hark!
Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings;
Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs;
Slow tolls the village-clock the drowsy hour;
The partridge bursts away on whirring wings ;
Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower,
And shrill lark carols clear from her aërial tower,

1. Pit this line into its natural order? 2. What is the compound adjective "dim-descried" meant to qualify? 3. Another form of this word? 4. What is the meaning of the phrase wakes the universal grove?

BEATTIE.

XII. EVENING.

"How can we think without admiration and gratitude, on the tender care of Providence, to secure our repose during the absence of the day? As soon as night comes on, a calm is diffused over all nature, which proclaims to all creatures a rest from their labours, and invites man to sleep. During the time that men sleep, nature in their behalf suspends noise, vivid light, and all such impressions as might keep the senses in action. The animals whose activity might disturb our repose, have themselves need of rest. Birds seek their nests; the ox, the horse, and other domestic animals sleep around us."—Sturm. Он, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things— Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer! Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

STUDY AND BEAUTIES OF WORKS OF NATURE.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns!

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BYRON.

XIII. THE STUDY AND BEAUTIES OF THE WORKS OF

NATURE.

"To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the place beneath. The state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours, which make even the divisions of the day sensible to a keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants, punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for all."-R. W. Emerson.

O NATURE! all-sufficient! over all!

Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing passions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravished eye;

A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition; under closing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin,
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song;
And let me never, never stray from thee!

THOMSON.

XIV. LUCY.

"THE soul and nature are attuned together. Something within answers to all we witness without. When I look on the ocean in its might and tumult, my spirit is stirred, swelled. When it spreads out in peaceful blue waves, under a bright sky, it is dilated, yet composed. I enter into the spirit of the earth, and this is always good. Nature breathes nothing unkind. It expands, or calms, or softens us. Let us open our souls to its influences." Channing.

THREE years she grew, in sun, and shower,

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Then Nature said, a lovelier flower

On earth was never seen;
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.
Myself will, to my darling, be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The girl, on rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power,

To kindle and restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That, wild with glee, across the lawn,
Or up the mountain springs;
And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence, and the calm-
Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds-their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see,

Even in the motions of the storm,

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear,

In many a secret place,

Where rivulets dance their wayward round

And beauty, born of murmuring sound,

Shall pass into her face.

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts, to Lucy I will give,

While she and I together live,

Here in this happy dell."

AN APRIL DAY.

Thus Nature spake-The work was done-
How soon my Lucy's race was run:

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;

The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

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WORDSWORTH.

XV. AN APRIL DAY.

"It was a lovely evening, in the spring time of the year; and in the soft stillness of the twilight, all nature was very calm and beautiful. The day had been fine and warm; but at the coming on of night the air grew cool, and in the mellowing distance, smoke was coming gently from the cottage chimneys. There were a thousand pleasant scents diffused around from young leaves and fresh buds; the cuckoo had been singing all day long, and was but just now hushed; the smell of earth, newly upturned-first breath of hope to the labourer, after his garden withered-was fragrant in the evening breeze. It was a time when most men cherish good resolves, and sorrow for the wasted past; when most men, looking on the shadows as they gather, think of that evening which must close on all, and that to-morrow which has none beyond."-Dickens.

WHEN the warm sun, that brings

Seed-time and harvest. has returned again,
"Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,

When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
No dark and many-folded clouds foretell

The coming on of storms.

From the earth's loosened mould,

The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.

The softly warbled song

Comes from the pleasant woods, and coloured wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that move along
The forest openings.

When the bright sunset fills

The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,

And wide the upland glows.