XXII. STANZAS WRITTEN ON A SPRING DAY.

"MANKIND are always happier for having been happy; so that if
you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years
hence, by the memory of it. A childhood past, with a due mix-
ture of rational indulgence, under fond and wise parents, diffuses
over the whole of life a feeling of calm pleasure, and in extreme old
age, is the very last remembrance which time can erase from the mind
of man.
No enjoyment, however inconsiderable, is confined to the
present moment. A man is the happier for life, from having made
once an agreeable tour, or lived for any length of time with pleasant
people, or enjoyed any considerable interval of innocent pleasure;
and it is, most probably, the recollection of their past pleasures
which contributes to render old men so inattentive to the scenes
before them, and carries them back to a world that is past, and to
scenes never to be renewed."- Rev. Sydney Smith.

Он let me bask amid the beams
That gild the May-day sod,
For I am dreaming happy dreams
Of joy, and love, and God.

A soft and sunny day like this
Brings back a thousand things!
To dance again with elfin bliss
In memory's fairy rings.

As fond affection's words of might,
In secret fluid traced,

Exist unseen, till warmth and light
Before the scroll are placed;

So do the deep and mystic thoughts
Of pure devotion start,
Into rich flow, as Nature's glow
Of sunshine meets my heart.

I heard loud merry voices come
Of children out at play;
The music of that human hum,
Is earth's first poet-lay.

It yields the notes that call me back

To many a kindred scene,

When my young steps and my young track

Were just as gay and green,

I recked not then what fame or gold

The world might have to give ;

While balls were flung, and hoops were trolled,
'Twas boon enough to live.

MAN.

And while I hear glad shouting now
From childhood's parting lips,
As spring rays steal, with radiant brow,
From winter's dark eclipse;

I find my spirit's hope become
As gleaming and as vernal,
For child and flower, with holy power,
Say, "Beauty is eternal."

So let me bask amid the beams
That gild the May-day sod,

For they are bringing happy dreams
Of joy, and love, and God.

291

ELIZA COOK.

XXIII. MAN.

"In all inferior things from the grass on the house-top to the giant tree of the forest; from the gnats that swarm in its shade, and the mole that burrows amid its roots to the eagle which builds in its summits, and the elephant which browses on its branches, we behold -first, a subjection to universal laws by which each thing belongs to the whole, as interpenetrated by the powers of the whole; and, secondly, the intervention of particular laws by which the universal laws are suspended or tempered for the weal and sustenance of each particular class. Hence and thus we see too that each species, and each individual of every species becomes a system, a world of its own. If, then, we behold this economy everywhere in the irrational creation, shall we not hold it probable that by some analogous intervention a similar temperament will have been effected for the rational and moral? Are we not entitled to expect some appropriate agency in behalf of the presiding and alone progressive creature? To presume some especial provision for the permanent interest of the creature destined to move and grow towards that divine humanity which we have learned to contemplate as the final cause of all creation, and the centre in which all its lines converge."- Coleridge.

"The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments? these rich conveniences? this ocean of air above? this ocean of water beneath? this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights? this tent of drooping clouds? this striped coat of climates? this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn, serve him. The fieid is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and nis bed.

"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of.'

"Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other's hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the seed; the sun evaporates the sea; the wind blows the vapour to the field; the ice on the other side of the planet condenses rain on this; the rain feeds the plant; the plant feeds the animal; and thus the endless circulations of the Divine charity nourish man."-Emerson's Nature.

My God, I heard this day,

That none doth build a stately habitation,
But he that means to dwell therein :

What house more stately hath there been,
Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation
All things are in decay.

For man is every thing;

And more. He is a tree, yet bears no fruit.
A beast; yet is or should be more ;
Reason and speech we only bring.

Parrots may thank us if they are not mute;
They go upon the score.

Man is all symmetry,

Full of proportions, one limb to another,

And to all the world besides.

Each part may call the farthest brother:

For head with foot hath private amity;
And both, with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so far,

But man hath caught and kept it, as his prey.

His eyes dismount the highest star ;

He is, in little, all the sphere.

Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they

Find their acquaintance there.

For us the winds do blow,

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow,

Nothing we see, but means our good;

As our delight, or as our treasure.

The whole is either our cupboard of food,

Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed:

Night draws the curtain; which the sun withdraws

Music and light attend our head.

All things unto our flesh are kind,

In their descent and being; to our mind
In their ascent and cause.

THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY,

Each thing is full of duty:

Waters united are our navigation:

Distinguished, our habitation;

Below, our drink; above, our meat:

Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty?
Then how are all things neat!

More servants wait on man,

Than he'll take notice of. In every path

He treads down that, which doth befriend him,
When sickness makes him pale and wan.

Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.

Since then, my God, thou hast

So brave a palace built; Oh, dwell in it,

That it may dwell with thee at last.

Till then, afford us so much wit,

That as the world serves us, we may serve thee;
And both thy servants be.

293

HERBERT.

XXIV. THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY.

"Ir is perhaps, an extravagant supposition, that a race of the blind, unless endowed with some other sense to compensate the defect of sight, could have acquired so much command of the common arts of life, or so much science of any sort, as to preserve themselves in existence. But though all this, by a very strong license of supposition, were taken for granted, it must surely be admitted, that the knowledge which man could in those circumstances acquire, would be not merely less in degree, but would be as truly different from that which his powers at present have reached, as if the objects of his science, or the laws which regulate them, had themselves been changed to an extent, at least as great as the supposed change in the laws of mind. The astronomy of the blind, if the word might still be used to express a science so very different from the present, would in truth, be a sort of chymistry. Day and night, the magnificent and harmonious revolution of season after season, would be nothing more than periodical changes of temperature in the objects around; and that great dispenser of the seasons, the source of light, and beauty, and almost of animation, at whose approach nature seems not merely to awake, but to rise again, as it was at first, from the darkness of its original chaos, if its separate existence could be at all inferred, would probably be classed as something similar, though inferior in power, to that unknown source of heat, which, by a perilous and almost unknown process, was fearfully piled and kindled on the household nearth," Brown's Lectures.

HE ne'er had seen one earthly sight;
The sun, the day; the stars, the night;
Or tree, or butterfly, or flower,
Or fish in stream, or bird in bower,
Or woman, man, or child.

And yet he neither drooped nor pined,
Nor had a melancholy mind;
For God took pity on the boy,
And was his friend; and gave him joy
Of which we nothing know.

His mother, too, no doubt, above
Her other children him did love!
For, was she here, or was she there,
She thought of him with constant care,
And more than mother's love.

And proud was she of heart, when clad
In crimson stockings, tartan plaid,
And bonnet with a feather gay,
To Kirk he on the sabbath day

Went hand in hand with her.

A dog, too, had he; not for need,
But one to play with and to feed;
Which would have led him, if bereft,
Of company or friends, and left

Without a better guide.

And then the bag-pipes he could blow;
And thus from house to house would go,
And all were pleased to hear and see;
For none made sweeter melody

Than did the poor blind boy.

WORDSWORTH,

XXV. THANK HEAVEN I'M STILL A BOY.

"To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day for perhaps forty years has rendered familiar, With sun and moon and stars throughout the year,

And man and womau

this is the character aud privilege of genius, and one of the marks which distinguish genius from talent."-Coleridge.