Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth From the low modest shade, to light and bless

the earth.

V.

Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march Faltered with age at last? does the bright sun Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue

arch,

Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, Less brightly? when the dew-lipped Spring

comes on,

Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the

sky

With flowers less fair than when her reign be

gun?

Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny

The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober

eye?

VI.

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth
In her fair page; see, every season brings
New change, to her, of everlasting youth;
Still the green soil, with joyous living things,
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings,
And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep
Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings
The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep
In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the
deep.

VII.

Will then the merciful One, who stamped our

race

With his own image, and who gave them sway O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face, Now that our swarming nations far away

Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the

day,

Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed
His latest offspring? will he quench the ray
Infused by his own forming smile at first,
And leave a work so fair all blighted and ac-
cursed?

VIII.

Oh, no! a thousand cheerful omens give
Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh.
He who has tamed the elements, shall not live
The slave of his own passions; he whose eye
Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky,
And in the abyss of brightness dares to span
The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,
In God's magnificent works his will shall scan—-
And love and peace shall make their paradise
with man.

IX.

Sit at the feet of history-through the night
Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace,
And show the earlier ages, where her sight
Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er their face ;-
When, from the genial cradle of our race,
Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot
To choose, where palm-groves cooled their
dwelling-place,

Or freshening rivers ran; and there forgot

The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that heard them not.

X.

Then waited not the murderer for the night,
But smote his brother down in the bright day,
And he who felt the wrong, and had the might,
His own avenger, girt himself to slay;
Beside the path the unburied carcass lay;

The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen, Fled, while, the robber swept his flock away, And slew his babes. The sick, untended then, Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men.

XI.

But misery brought in love-in passion's strife Man gave his heart to mercy, pleading long, And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life; The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong, Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew

strong.

States rose, and, in the shadow of their might, The timid rested. To the reverent throng, Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all

white,

Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right;