CORRESPONDENCES. 31 Little dreaming the cause why to such terms he is prone, Little dreaming that everything has its own correspondence Folded within it of old, as in the body the soul. Gleams of the mystery fall on us still, though much is forgotten, And through our commonest speech illumines the path of our thoughts. Thus does the lordly sun shine out a type of the Godhead; Wisdom and Love the beams that shine on a darkened world. Thus do the sparkling waters flow, giving joy to the desert, And the great Fountain of Life opens itself to the thirst. Thus does the word of God distil like the rain and the dew-drops, Thus does the warm wind breathe like to the Spirit of God, And the green grass and the flowers are signs of the regeneration. O thou Spirit of Truth! visit our minds once more! Give us to read, in letters of light, the language celestial, Written all over the earth, the sky; written all over. 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? 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, 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, I range the forests wide. 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 up Below, as o'er its ocean breadth I look around to where the sky This kingdom, all is mine! 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, My music is the wind that now 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, 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! |