While, far along the west, mine eyes discerned,

Where, lit by God, the fires of sunset burned, The tree-tops, unconsumed, to flame were turned;

And I, in that great hush, Talked with his angels in each burning bush!

PHOEBE CARY.

NATURE AND THE BOOK.

I HEARD One say but now: "Shut up the book;
For Nature tells the story better still.
The fingered pages have a musty look;
The wide green margin of the mountain rill,
The running notes of ripples on the beach,
The open scroll of the blue firmament,
In loftier language the same lesson teach.
Will not the broader truth thy mind content?
The cover of thy book may be a door

To shut the elder gospel out of sight.
It tells thee only that which was before;

God said, ere it was writ, 'Let there be light!'

And light is everywhere, - around, within; Earth luminous with heaven: what more wilt ask?

The eternal effluence is thy next of kin;
Lay clogs aside, and in full freedom bask."

"But few live on the mountain-peaks of thought,

And fewer still keep holy instinct pure: To sin, as unto weakness, hath he brought This lamp, to make the homeward pathway

sure.

Shall we blow out our torch, because the sun Shone yesterday, and will to morrow shine? Too much of work remaineth to be done, And every gleam we toil by is divine. "Wherefore should he permit these flowers to bloom,

That rays from earth's great luminary break? Because to us its dazzling blaze were gloom: Of ravelled rainbows beauty's web we make. Jewel and blossom, shaded leaf and star, Give no full revelation of the light. Colors but letters of an alphabet are,

Pointing us back ward to the primitive white. The common eye needs every tint and tone; The soul of man, much more, God's faintest word.

His glory through our mortal thought hath shone;

When saint or prophet speaks, he still is heard:

And in the revelation of the book,
For surely he most brother-like hath come,-
As in a mirror on his face we look,

So reassured, when Nature seemeth dumb. "Yet will I listen to the ancient voice, Forever new, that speaks in wind and wave ; It is the self-same tale; let me rejoice

In joy that his bewildered children have. For they are glad in him, the God unknown: Oh that they knew the sacred emphasis The word on Nature's loveliness has thrown, And how the world by Christ's face lighted

is,

As if new sunshine brake into the air,
As if fresh odors burst from everything!
This book is a wide window, opening fair
Into the splendors of immortal spring.
Nor shall it now be shut again on earth

Until that city, that dear bride, descends, All souls resound the heavenly marriage-mirth, And all the blindness sin has brought us ends."

LUCY LARCOM.

A THANKSGIVING.

FOR the wealth of pathless forests,
Whereon no axe may fall;

For the winds that haunt the branches,
The young bird's timid call;

For the red leaves dropped like rubies
Upon the dark green sod;
For the waving of the forests,
I thank thee, O my God!

For the sound of waters gushing

In bubbling beads of light;
For the fleets of snow-white lilies
Firm anchored out of sight;
For the reeds among the eddies,
The crystal on the clod;
For the flowing of the rivers,
I thank thee, O my God!

For the rosebud's break of beauty
Along the toiler's way;
For the violet's eye that opens

To bless the new-born day;
For the bare twigs that in summer

Bloom like the prophet's rod;
For the blossoming of flowers,
I thank thee, O my God!

For the lifting up of mountains,

In brightness and in dread; For the peaks where snow and sunshine Alone have dared to tread ; For the dark of silent gorges, Whence mighty cedars nod; For the majesty of mountains, I thank thee, O my God!

For the splendor of the sunsets,

Vast mirrored on the sea;

For the gold-fringed clouds, that curtain Heaven's inner majesty ;

For the molten bars of twilight,

Where thought leans, glad, yet awed;
For the glory of the sunsets,
I thank thee, O my God!

For the earth and all its beauty,
The sky and all its light;
For the dim and soothing shadows,
That rest the dazzled sight;
For unfading fields and prairies,
Where sense in vain has trod;
For the world's exhaustless beauty,
I thank thee, O my God!

For an eye of inward seeing,

A soul to know and love; For these common aspirations

That our high heirship prove: For the hearts that bless each other

Beneath thy smile, thy rod; For the amaranth saved from Eden, I thank thee, O my God!

For the hidden scroll, o'erwritten
With one dear Name adored;
For the heavenly in the human,
The Spirit in the Word;
For the tokens of thy presence

Within, above, abroad;
For thine own great gift of being,
I thank thee, O my God!

59

LUCY LARCOM.

WHO RUNS MAY READ. THERE is a book, who runs may read, Which heavenly truth imparts, And all the lore its scholars need,

Pure eyes and Christian hearts.

The works of God above, below,
Within us and around,
Are pages in that book, to show
How God himself is found.

The glorious sky, embracing all,
Is like the Maker's love,
Wherewith encompassed, great and small
In peace and order move.

The moon above, the Church below,
A wondrous race they run,
But all their radiance, all their glow,
Each borrows of its sun.

The Saviour lends the light and heat That crowns his holy hill;

The saints, like stars, around his seat, Perform their courses still.

The saints above are stars in heaven
What are the saints on earth?
Like trees they stand whom God has given.
Our Eden's happy birth.

Faith is their fixed unswerving root,

Hope their unfading flower, Fair deeds of charity their fruit,

The glory of their bower.

The dew of heaven is like thy grace.
It steals in silence down;
But where it lights, the favored place
By richest fruits is known.

One Name above all glorious names With its ten thousand torgues, The everlasting sea proclaims, Echoing angelic songs.

But when eve's silent footfall steals
Along the eastern sky,
And one by one to earth reveals
Those purer fires on high,

When one by one each human sound
Dies on the awful ear,
Then Nature's voice no more is drowned,
She speaks, and we must hear.

Then pours she on the Christian heart
That warning still and deep,

At which high spirits of old would start
Even from their Pagan sleep,

Just guessing, through their murky blind,
Few, faint, and baffling sight,
Streaks of a brighter heaven behind,
A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,
Through many a dreary age,
Upbore whate'er of good and wise

Yet lived in bard or sage:

They marked what agonizing throes

Shook the great mother's womb;
But Reason's spells might not disclose
The gracious birth to come;

Nor could the enchantress Hope forecast
God's secret love and power;
The travail pangs of Earth must last
Till her appointed hour;

The hour that saw from opening heaven
Redeeming glory stream,

Beyond the summer hues of even,
Beyond the midday beam.

Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,
The meanest things below,

As with a seraph's robe of fire
Invested, burn and glow:

The rod of Heaven has touched them all, The word from heaven is spoken: "Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall; "Are not thy fetters broken?

"The God who hallowed thee and blessed, Pronouncing thee all good,

Hath he not all thy wrongs redressed,
And all thy bliss renewed?

"Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft, Now that the eternal Son

His blessed home in heaven hath left
To make thee all his own?"

Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind, Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string,

Smit with your theme, be in your chorus joined, For till you cease my muse forgets to sing. JAMES THOMSON.

NOCHE SERENA.

Luis Ponce de LEON was born near Granada, Spain, in 1527, and early became known as a spirited poet as well as a profound student of sacred literature. He was a member of the order of St. Augustine of Salamanca, but rendered himself obnoxious to the Inquisition, and was thrown into prison on the charge of Lutheranism and opposition to the decrees of the Council of Trent. Fifty times was he brought before the high court, and though he made a defence that stands as one of the most admired specimens of Spanish prose, he was condemned to the rack, from which he was rescued by the intervention of powerful friends. He suffered imprisonment for five years, after which he returned to his chair in the university, and continued his lectures without taking any notice of his long absence. His lyrics are considered the finest in the language. He died at Madrigal, Aug. 23, 1591.

WHEN yonder glorious sky,
Lighted with million lamps, I contemplate,
And turn my dazzled eye

To this vain mortal state,

All dim and visionary, mean and desolate,

A mingled joy and grief

Fills all my soul with dark solicitude;
I find a short relief

In tears, whose torrents rude

Roll down my cheeks, at thoughts that will intrude.

Thou so sublime abode,

Temple of light, and beauty's fairest shrine!
My soul, a spark of God,
Aspiring to thy seats divine,

Why, why is it condemned in this dull cell to pine?

Why should I ask in vain

For truth's pure lamp; and wander here alone,
Seeking, through toil and pain,
Light from the Eternal One,
Following a shadow still, that glimmers and is
gone?

Dreams and delusions play

With man; he thinks not of his mortal fate : Death treads his silent way;

The earth turns round; and then too late Man finds no trace is left of all his fancied state.

Rise from your sleep, vain man! Look round, and ask if spirits born of Heaven, And bound to Heaven again,

Were only lent or given,

To be in this mean round of shades and follies driven.

Turn your unclouded eye

Up to yon bright, to yon eternal spheres,
And spurn the vanity

Of Time's delusive years,

And all its flattering hopes, and all its frowning fears.

What is the ground ye tread

But a mere point, compared with that vast

space

Around, above you, spread,

Where, in the Almighty's face,

The present, future, past, hold an eternal place?

List to the concert pure

Of yon harmonious, countless worlds of light! See, in his orbit sure

Each takes his journey bright,

Led by an unseen hand through the vast maze of night.

See how the pale moon rolls

Her silver wheel; and, scattering beams afar
On earth's benighted souls,
See wisdom's holy star;

Or, in his fiery course, the sanguine orb of war;

Or that benignant ray

Which love hath called his own, and made

so fair;

Or that serene display

Of power supernal there,

Where Jupiter conducts his chariot through

the air.

And, circling all the rest,

See Saturn, father of the golden hours:
While round him, bright and blest,
The whole empyrean showers
Its glorious streams of light on this low world
of ours!

But who to these can turn,

And weigh them 'gainst a weeping world like this,

Nor feel his spirit burn
To grasp so sweet a bliss,

And mourn that exile hard, which here his portion is?

For there, and there alone, Are peace and joy and never-dying love, There, on a splendid throne