THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF. XXXIII. THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF. 249 It "SUFFERING Comes to us through and from our whole nature. cannot be winked out of sight. It cannot be thrust into a subordinate place in the picture of human life. It is the chief burden of history. It is the solemn theme of one of the highest departments of literature, the tragic drama. It gives to fictions their deep interest. It wails through much of our poetry. A large part of human vocations are intended to shut up some of its avenues. It has left traces on every human countenance, over which years have passed. It is to not a few the most vivid recollection of life."- Channing. OH! call my brother back to me ! I cannot play alone; The summer comes with flower and bee; The butterfly is glancing bright Across the sunbeam's track; I care not now to chase its flight- The flowers run wild,-the flowers we sowed Our vine is drooping with its load Oh! call him back to me ! He would not hear thy voice, fair child— The face that once like spring-time smiled A rose's brief bright life of joy, Go, thou must play alone, my boy! And has he left his birds and flowers? And must I call in vain ? And thro' the long, long summer hours, And by the brook and in the glade Oh! while my brother with me played, MRS. HEMANS. XXXIV. LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING. "IT is to the young mind that nature is so fascinating, as soon as any person or circumstance has once directed the attention to it. A mature man, who had never been the child and youth, would not have felt from nature those impressions, which our Wordsworth has so interestingly delineated. It is because we have passed through these stages, and have recollections of what then occurred to ourselves, that we understand and enjoy the verses which recall to us the realities they describe."-Turner's Sacred History of the World. I HEARD a thousand blended notes, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts To her fair works did nature link The human soul that through me ran; Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The birds around me hopped and played, The budding twigs spread out their fan, And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. If this belief from heaven be sent, Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man? WORDSWORTH. XXXV, SEPARATION. ་ "WE cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the richness of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had TO A DAISY. 251 bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, Up and onward for evermore!' We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards."— Emerson. FRIEND after friend departs, Who hath not lost a friend? Beyond the flight of time,— Beyond the reign of death,— There is a world above, Where parting is unknown; Formed for the good alone; Thus star by star declines, As morning high and higher shines, To pure and perfect day: Nor sink those stars in empty night, But hide themselves in heaven's own light. JAMES MONTGOMERY. XXXVI. TO A DAISY. "THE vegetable kingdom, in its varied flowers, foliage, stems, and graceful and delicate expansions; in its playful branches and gentle movements, and in its multiplied fruits and useful products of numerous sorts and of universal application, displays a peculiar goodness, liberality, and kindness in the Divine mind towards His human race -a desire to please, to interest and to amuse us with the most innocent, continual, accessible and gratifying enjoyments."-Turner's Sacred History. BRIGHT flower whose home is everywhere! And oft, the long year through, the heir Methinks that there abides in thee Given to no other flower I see And wherefore? Man is soon deprest; Or on his reason. But thou wouldst teach him how to find A hope for times that are unkind, WORDSWORTH. XXXVII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE. "ONE of the most special appointments of the Creator, as to birds, and which nothing but His chosen design and corresponding ordainment can explain, is the law, that so many kinds shall migrate from one country to another, and most commonly at vast distances from each other. They might have been all framed to breed, be born, live, and die, in the same region, as occurs to some, and as quadrupeds and insects do. But He has chosen to make them travel from one climate to another, with unerring precision, from an irresistible instinct, with a wonderful courage, with an untiring mobility, and in a right and never-failing direction. For this purpose, they cross oceans without fear, and with a persevering exertion that makes our most exhausting labours a comparative amusement. Philosophy in vain endeavours to account for the extraordinary phenomenon. It cannot discover any adequate physical reason. Warmer temperatures are not essentially necessary to incubation, nor always the object of the emigration; for the snow bunting, though a bird of song, goes into the frozen zone to breed, lay, and nurture its young. The snow bird has the same taste or constitution for the chilling weather, which the majority recede from. We can only resolve all these astonishing journeys into the appointment of the Creator, who has assigned to every bird the habits, as well as the form, which it was his good pleasure to imagine and to attach to it. The watchful naturalist may hear, if not see, several migrations of those which frequent our island, both to and fro, as spring advances and as autumn declines. They are more numerous in the latter season, from the addition of their progeny. Their movement takes place chiefly at BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 253 the latter part of the night, or at early dawn, though some are seen in the more advanced part of the morning; but as they sail along the higher regions of the atmosphere, they are much oftener audible than visible to us on the surface of the earth."- Turner's Sacred History of the World. BIRDS, joyous birds of the wandering wing! Whence is it ye come with the flowers of spring? "We have swept o'er cities in song renowned,3 We have crossed proud rivers, whose tide hath roll'd "We have found a change, we have found a pall, "A change we have found there-and many a change! Faces, and footsteps, and all things strange! Gone are the heads of the silvery hair, And the young that were, have a brow of care, Sad is your tale of the beautiful earth, 1. Explain the meaning of the epithets green and old as applied to Nile? 2. What was Sharon ? MRS. HEMANS. 3. Name some of the cities here referred to? 4. The prose order of this line? |