SWEETSCENTED VERNAL GRASS. GRASS of the field! the morning sun Shines on thy verdure fair; In warning tone the Psalmist says, Youth, thoughtless of impending doom, Forgets that evening's hour of gloom And even when that hour is come, LE BOUQUET DES SOUVENIRS. SOLOMON, in all his wisdom, never taught more wholesome lessons, than these silent monitors convey to a thoughtful mind, and an “understanding heart." Surely the heathen knew better how to join and read these mystic letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck Divinity from the flowers of Nature. SOUTHEY. WHERE do we finer strokes and colours see But we despise these His inferior ways, (Though no less full of miracle and praise.) The stars of earth no wonder in us raise. COWLEY. WHITE STONECROP. WHERE men who 've braved the cannon's roar, Are pale with speechless dread, The stonecrop calmly mantles o'er The rugged bed. ΑΝΟΝ. THEN from his rocky pulpit, I heard cry The Stonecrop: "See how loose to earth I grow, And draw my juicy nurture from the sky. So drive not thou, fond man, thy root too low; But loosely clinging here, From God's supernal sphere Draw life's unearthly food,—catch Heaven's un dying glow." REV. R. W. EVANS. Do not depreciate any pursuit which leads men to contemplate the works of their Creator. The Linnæan traveller has in his pursuit an object that occupies his time, and fills his mind, and satisfies his heart. Nor is the pleasure which he partakes in investigating the structure of a plant, less pure, or less worthy than what you derive from perusing the noblest productions of human genius. SOUTHEY. THE desire which tends to know For wonderful indeed are all His works. MILTON, BLACK-STALKED SPLEENWORT. WHERE the copse-wood is the greenest, SIR W. SCOTT. THE ferns are waving all statelier here ANON. THY place is not where art exults to raise the tender flower, By terraced walk or deck'd parterre, or fenced or shelter'd bow'r; Nor where the straitly-level'd walls of tangled boughs between The sunbeams sweep the velvet swards, and streams through alleys green. ANON. |