OH! how beautiful is Nature! The grass and flowers grow luxurious; the trees are covered with foliage; millions of points of grass rise up in this field, and to each point hangs a drop of dew. Happy is he whose life passes away in the enjoyment of the beauties of Nature! The whole creation smiles upon him, and joy attends him wherever he goes, and under whatever shade he reposes. Pleasure springs out of every source, exhales from each flower, and resounds in every grove. His mind is serene as a calm summer's day; his affections are gentle and pure as the perfume of the flowers around him. Happy he, who in the beauties of Nature traces the Creator, and devotes himself wholly to Him!

STURM.

Trees, plants, cooling fruits, and sweet flowers, All speak to the praise of my God.

ANON.

QUAKING GRASS.

THE breeze is stopt, the lazy bough
Hath not a leaf that dances now;
The totter-grass upon the hill,

And spider's threads, are standing still.

CLARE.

A blade of silver hair-grass nodding slowly,
In the soft wind; the thistle's purple crown,
The ferns, the rushes tall, the mosses lowly,
A thorn, a weed, an insect, or a stone,
Can thrill me with sensations exquisite.

ANON.

AND in the pleasant grass

That smiles around us, fair waving in the breeze,

Delicious hues are seen innumerous,

As if the raindrops of the fresh wild spring

Had blossom'd where they fell.

CARRINGTON.

WHO does not look back with feelings, which he would in vain attempt to describe, to the delightful rambles which his native fields and meadows afforded to his earliest years? Flowers are among the first objects that forcibly attract the attention of young children, becoming to them the source of gratifications which are among the purest of which our nature is capable, and of which even the indistinct recollection imparts often a fleeting pleasure to the most cheerless moments of after life.

KIDD.

EARTH'S cultureless buds! to my heart ye were dear,

Ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear,

Had scathed my existence's bloom;

Once I welcome you more in life's passionless stage,

With the visions of youth to revisit my age,

And I wish you to grow on my tomb.

CAMPBELL.

BLUEBELL.

IN Spring's green lap there blooms a flower,
Whose cups imbibe each vernal shower;
Who sips fresh Nature's balmy dew,
Clad in her sweetest, purest blue:
Yet shuns the ruddy beam of morning,
The shaggy wood's brown shade adorning;
Simple flow'ret! child of May!

Though hid from the broad eye of day,
Though doom'd to waste those pensive graces,
In the wild wood's dark embraces,

In desert air thy sweets to shed,
Unnoticed droops thy languid head;
Still Nature's darling thou'lt remain.

Still then avoid the gaudy scene,

The flaunting sun, th' embroider'd green,
And bloom and fade, with chaste reserve unseen.

MISS C. SYMMONS.

[This promising writer died in the twelfth year of her age.]

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THOUGH the "broken cisterns of Nature not to be compared with the "Fountains of Living Water," the objects exhibited in the material world may aid our contemplation of things invisible, and cannot fail to animate our aspirations after that more glorious revelation as yet "seen but through a glass darkly.”

WITHERING.

Go abroad

Upon the paths of Nature, and when all
Its voices whisper, and its silent things
Are breathing the deep beauty of the world,
Kneel at its simple altar, and the God

Who hath “ the living waters" shall be there!

N. P. WILLIS.

DAY-SPRING and even-tide, and all the fair
And beautiful forms of Nature, have a voice
Of eloquent worship.

LONGFELLOW.

C