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 And spider's threads, are standing still. CLARE. A blade of silver hair-grass nodding slowly, 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, Though hid from the broad eye of day, In desert air thy sweets to shed, Still then avoid the gaudy scene, The flaunting sun, th' embroider'd green, MISS C. SYMMONS. [This promising writer died in the twelfth year of her age.] are 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 Who hath “ the living waters" shall be there! N. P. WILLIS. DAY-SPRING and even-tide, and all the fair LONGFELLOW. C |