Written all over the earth, - written all over the sky;

Thus may we bring our hearts at length to know our Creator,

Seeing in all things around types of the Infinite Mind.

NIAGARA.

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD.

THE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain

While I look upward to thee! It would seem
As if God poured thee from his hollow hand,
And hung his bow upon thine awful front,
And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to

him

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, "The sound of many waters," and had bade Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,

And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks.

Deep calleth unto deep, and what are we
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
O, what are all the notes that ever rung

THE BACKWOODSMAN.

33

From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side?
Yea, what is all the riot man can make,

In his short life, to thine unceasing roar?
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him
Who drowned the world, and heaped the waters
far

Above its loftiest mountains? A light wave,
That breaks and whispers of his Maker's might!

THE BACKWOODSMAN.

EPHRAIM PEABODY.

THE silent wilderness for me!

Where never sound is heard,
Save the rustling of the squirrel's foot
And the flitting wing of bird,

Or its low and interrupted note,

And the deer's quick, crackling tread,
And the swaying of the forest boughs,
As the wind moves overhead.

Alone, how glorious to be free!

My good dog at my side,

My rifle hanging on my arm,
I range the forests wide.

And now the regal buffalo

Across the plains I chase;

Now track the mountain stream, to find
The beaver's lurking-place.

I stand upon the mountain's top,
And-solitude profound! -

Not even a woodman's smoke curls

Within the horizon's bound. Below, as o'er its ocean breadth The air's light currents run, The wilderness of moving leaves Is glancing in the sun.

I look around to where the sky
Meets the far forest line,
And this imperial domain,

This kingdom, all is mine!

up

This bending heaven, these floating clouds,

Waters that ever roll,

And wilderness of glory, bring

Their offerings to my soul.

My palace, built by God's own hand,
The world's fresh prime hath seen;
Wide stretch its living halls away,
Pillared and roofed with green.
My music is the wind that now

Pours loud its swelling bars,

LINES WRITTEN AT TOCCOA FALLS.

Now lulls in dying cadences;

My festal lamps are stars.

Though when, in this my lonely home,
My star-watched couch I press,

I hear no fond" Good night!" think not
I am companionless.

O no! I see my father's house,

The hill, the tree, the stream,

And the looks and voices of my home
Come gently to my dream.

And in the solitary haunts,

While slumbers every tree,
In night and silence, God himself
Seems nearer unto me.

I feel his presence in the shades,
Like the embracing air;

And as my eyelids close in sleep,
My heart is hushed in prayer.

35

LINES WRITTEN AT TOCCOA FALLS, GEORGIA.

S. G. BULFINCH.

LOVELIEST and most sublime!

Flashing in virgin whiteness from the skies!
Here may the traveller fix his raptured eyes,
Nor heed quick-passing time.

Through thy transparent veil,

And wide around thee, Nature's grandest forms,
Rocks, built for ages to abide the storms,
Frown on the subject dale.

Fed by thy rapid stream,

In every crevice of that savage pile
The living herbs in quiet beauty smile,
Lit by the sunny gleam.

And over all, that gush

Of rain-drops, brightly sparkling in the sun! While ages round thee on their course have run, Forever on they rush.

I would not that the bow

With gorgeous hues should light thy virgin stream;

Better thy white and sunlit foam should gleam Thus, like pure mountain snow.

Yes! thou hast seen these woods

Around, for centuries, rise, decay, and die,
While thou hast poured thine endless current by
To join the eternal floods.

The ages pass away;

Successive nations rise and are forgot,

But on thy brilliant course thou pausest not,

Thy changing, changeless play.