LESSON XIII. SPRING. THE Spring-she is a blessed thing! She is the mate of birds and bees, Our star of hope through wintry hours. The merry children, when they see They are soonest with her in the woods, The little brooks run on in light, The aged man is in the field; Of wants that fret, and care that lowers. She comes with more than present good, Up! let us to the fields away, And health, and love, and peace are there MARY HOWITT. WHAT wak'st thou, Spring? Sweet voices in the woods, The lark's clear pipe, the cuckoo's viewless flute, And the leaves greet thee, Spring! the joyous leaves, When the south wind hath pierced the whispery shade, And the bright waters, they, too, hear thy call; And flowers, the fairy-peopled world of flowers! Silent they seem; yet each to thoughtful eye But what awak'st thou in the heart, O Spring? Fresh songs and scents break forth where'er thou art; Too much, oh! there too much!—we know not well Looks of familiar love, that never more, Never on earth, our aching eyes shall meet, Past words of welcome to our household door, Vain longings for the dead! Why come they back Hope to thy world may look beyond the tombs ? MRS. HEMANS. Of all the minor creations of God, flowers seem to be most completely the effusions of his love of beauty, grace, and joy. Of all the natural objects which surround us, they are the least connected with our absolute necessities. Vegetation might proceed, the earth might be clothed with a sober green; and all the processes of fructification might be perfected, without being attended by the glory with which the flower is crowned; but beauty and fragrance are poured abroad over the earth in blossoms of endless varieties, radiant evidences of the boundless benevolence of the Deity. They are made solely to gladden the heart of man, for a light to his eyes, for a living inspiration of grace to his spirit, for a perpetual admiration. And, accordingly, they seize on our affections the first moment that we behold them. As With what eagerness do very infants grasp at flowers! they become older they would live forever among them. They bound about in the flowery meadows like young fawns; they gather all they come near; they collect heaps; they sit among them, and sort them, and sing over them, and caress them, till they perish in their grasp. We see them coming wearily into the towns and villages, loaded with posies half as large as themselves. We trace them in shady lanes, in the grass of far-off fields, by the treasures they have gathered and have left behind, lured on by others still brighter. As they grow up to mature years, they assume, in their eyes, new characters and beauties. Then they are strewn around them, the poetry of the earth. They become invested by a multitude of associations with innumerable spells of power over the human heart; they are to us memorials of the joys, sorrows, hopes, and triumphs of our forefathers; they are, to all nations, the emblems of youth in its loveliness and purity. Of all the poetry ever drawn from flowers, none is so beautiful, none is so sublime, none is so imbued with that very spirit in which they were made, as that of Christ. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet, I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?' The sentiment built upon this, entire dependence on the goodness of the Creator, is one of the lights of our existence, and could only have been uttered by Christ. But we have here also the expression of the very spirit of beauty, in which flowers were created; a spirit so boundless and overflowing, that it delights to enliven and adorn, with these luxuriant creatures of sunshine, the solitary places of the earth; to scatter them by myriads over the very desert where no man is; on the wilderness where there is no man ;' sending rain, to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.' In our confined notions, we are often led to wonder why Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air; why beauty, and flowers, and fruit, should be scattered so exuberantly where there are none to enjoy them. But the thoughts of the Almighty are not as our thoughts. He sees them; he, doubtless, delights to behold the beauty of his handwork, and rejoices in that tide of glory which he has caused to flow wide through the universe. We know not, either, what spiritual eyes besides may behold them; for pleasant is the belief, that Myriads of spiritual creatures walk the earth. And how often does the gladness of uninhabited lands refresh the heart of the solitary traveler! When the distant and seatired voyager suddenly descries the blue mountain-tops, and the lofty crest of the palm-tree, and makes some green and pleasant island, where the verdant and blossoming forestboughs wave in the spicy gale, where the living waters leap from the rocks, and millions of new and resplendent flowers brighten the fresh sward, what then is the joy of his heart! To Omnipotence, creation costs not an effort, but to the desolate and the weary, how immense is the happiness thus prepared in the wilderness! Who does not recollect the exultation of Vaillant over a magnificent lily in the torrid wastes of Africa, which, growing on the banks of a river, filled the air far around with its delicious fragrance, and, as he observes, had been respected by all the animals of the district, and seemed defended even by its beauty? HOWITT. LESSON XVI. THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS. THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between. "Shall I have naught that is fair?” saith he; He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves: It was for the Lord of Paradise, He bound them in his sheaves. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child. "They shall all bloom in fields of light, Transplanted by my care, And saints, upon their garments white, And the mother gave, in tears and pain, |