Strange doth it seem that the sun should joy
To give life, alone, that it may destroy.
Strange, that the Ocean should come and go,
With its daily and nightly ebb and flow,—
Should bear on its placid breast at morn
The bark that ere night will be tempest-torn;
Or cherish it all the way it must roam,
To leave it a wreck within sight of home :
To smile as the mariner's toils are o'er,
Then wash the dead to the cottage door;
And gently ripple along the strand,
To watch the widow behold him land!
But, stranger than all, that man should die,
When his plans are form'd and his hopes are high;
He walks forth a lord of the earth to-day,
And the morrow beholds him part of its clay;
He is born in sorrow, and cradled in pain,
And from youth to age it is labour in vain ;
And all that seventy years can show
Is-that wealth is trouble, and wisdom woe;
That he travels a path of care and strife,
Who drinks of the poison'd cup of life!
Alas! if we murmur at things like these,
That reflection tells us are wise decrees;
That the Wind is not ever a gentle breath-
That the Sun is often the bearer of death-
That the Ocean-wave is not always still-
And that life is chequer'd with good and ill;
If we know 'tis well that such change should be,
What do we learn from the things we see?
That an erring and sinning child of dust
Should not wonder nor murmur-but hope and
trust!
THE lovely young Lavinia once had friends,
And fortune smiled deceitful on her birth :
For in her helpless years deprived of all,
Of every stay, save innocence and heaven,
She with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose
When the dew wets its leaves: unstain'd and
As is the lily or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers;
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promised once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears.
A native grace
Sat fair proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was Beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild ;-
So flourish'd, blooming, and unseen by all,
WISDOM OF GOD IN THE VEGETABLE CREATION.
YOUR contemplation farther yet pursue;
The wondrous world of vegetables view!
Observe the forest oak, the mountain pine,
The towering cedar, and the humble vine,
The bending willow, that o'ershades the flood,
And each spontaneous offspring of the wood!
The oak and pine, which high from earth arise,
And wave their lofty heads amidst the skies,
Their parent earth in like proportion wound,
And through crude metals penetrate the ground;
Their strong and ample roots descend so deep,
That fix'd and firm, they may their station keep,
And the fierce shocks of furious winds defy,
With all the outrage of inclement sky.
But the base brier, and the noble vine,
Their arms around their stronger neighbour twine.
The creeping ivy, to prevent its fall,
Clings with its fibrous grapples to the wall.
Thus are the trees of every kind secure,
Or by their own, or by a borrow'd power.
But every tree from all its branching roots, Amidst the glebe, small hollow fibres shoots; Which drink with thirsty mouths the vital juice, And to the limbs and leaves their food diffuse: Peculiar pores peculiar juice receive,
To this deny, to that admittance give.
-Hence various trees their various fruits produce,
Some for delightful taste, and some for use.
Hence sprouting plants enrich the plain and wood,
For physic some, and some design'd for food.
Hence fragrant flowers, with different colours
dyed,
On smiling meads unfold their gaudy pride.
-Review these numerous scenes, at once survey Nature's extended face, then, sceptics, say, In this wide field of wonders can you find No art discover'd, and no end design'd?
But oh! how dark is human reason found,
How vain the man with wit and learning crown'd;
How feeble all his strength when he essays
To trace dark Nature, and detect her ways,
Unless he calls its Author to his aid,
Who every secret spring of motion laid;
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