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 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 THE BACKWOODSMAN. 33 From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side? In his short life, to thine unceasing roar? Above its loftiest mountains? A light wave, THE BACKWOODSMAN. EPHRAIM PEABODY. THE silent wilderness for me! Where never sound is heard, Or its low and interrupted note, And the deer's quick, crackling tread, Alone, how glorious to be free! My good dog at my side, My rifle hanging on my arm, And now the regal buffalo Across the plains I chase; Now track the mountain stream, to find I stand upon the mountain's top, 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 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, 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, I hear no fond" Good night!" think not O no! I see my father's house, The hill, the tree, the stream, And the looks and voices of my home And in the solitary haunts, While slumbers every tree, I feel his presence in the shades, And as my eyelids close in sleep, 35 LINES WRITTEN AT TOCCOA FALLS, GEORGIA. S. G. BULFINCH. LOVELIEST and most sublime! Flashing in virgin whiteness from the skies! Through thy transparent veil, And wide around thee, Nature's grandest forms, Fed by thy rapid stream, In every crevice of that savage pile 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, The ages pass away; Successive nations rise and are forgot, But on thy brilliant course thou pausest not, Thy changing, changeless play. |