sounds and scents that the wild wastes of water never know. But to the human creature who has eyes that will see, and ears that will hear, nature appeals with such a novel charm that the luxurious beauty of the land is half forgotten before one is aware. Its sweet gardens, full of color and perfume; its rich woods and softly swelling hills; its placid waters, and fields, and flowery meadows, are no longer dear and desirable; for the wonderful sound of the sea dulls the memory of all past impressions, and seems to fulfil and satisfy all present needs. Landing for the first time, the stranger is struck only by the sadness of the place, the vast loneliness; for there are not even trees to whisper with familiar voices, nothing but sky and sea and rock. But the very wilderness and desolation reveal a strange beauty to him. Let him wait till evening comes,

"With sunset purple soothing all the waste,"

and he will find himself slowly succumbing to the subtle charm of that sea atmosphere. He sleeps with all the waves of the Atlantic murmuring in his ears, and wakes to the freshness of a summer morning; and it seems as if morning were made for the first time. For the world is like a new-blown rose, and in the heart of it he stands, with only the caressing music of the water to break the utter silence, unless, perhaps, a song-sparrow pours out its blissful warble like an embodied joy. The sea is rosy, and the sky the line of land is radiant; the scattered sails glow with the delicious color that touches so tenderly the bare, bleak rocks. These are lovelier than sky or sea or distant sails, or graceful gulls' wings reddened with the dawn; nothing takes color so beautifully as the

bleached granite; the shadows are delicate, and the fine, hard outlines are glorified and softened beneath the fresh. first blush of sunrise. All things are speckless and spotless; there is no dust, no noise,- nothing but peace in the sweet air and on the quiet sea. The day goes on ; the rose changes to mellow gold, the gold to clear, white daylight, and the sea is sparkling again. A breeze ripples the surface, and wherever it touches, the color deepens. A seine-boat passes, with the tawny net heaped in the stern, and the scarlet shirts of the rowers brilliant against the blue. Pleasantly their voices come across the water, breaking the stillness. The fishingboats steal to and fro, silent, with glittering sails; the gulls wheel lazily; the far-off coasters glide rapidly along the horizon; the mirage steals down the coast-line, and seems to remove it leagues away. And what if it were to slip down the slope of the world and disappear entirely? You think, in a half-dream, you would not care. Many troubles, cares, perplexities, vexations, lurk behind that far, faint line for you. Why should you be bothered any more?

66

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,

And in a little while our lips are dumb."

And so the waves, with their lulling murmur, do their work, and you are soothed into repose and transient forgetfulness.

THE SNOW-STORM.

JAMES THOMSON.

Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white.

'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low, the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first

Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is,-
Till, more familiar grown, the table crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds

Pour forth their brown inhabitants.

The hare,

Though timorous of heart, and hard beset

By death in various forms,- dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men,- the garden seeks,

Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind

Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

A HYMN OF PRAISE.

THOMSON.

- these

These, as they change, Almighty Father!
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is jɔy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn, unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming a harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,

Man marks not thee;

marks not the mighty hand,

That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres;

Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring :
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life.

Nature, attend! join every living soul Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,In adoration join; and, ardent, raise

One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,

Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes:
O talk of Him in solitary glooms!

Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely-waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.

And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,

Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;
And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze

Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,

A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound His stupendous praise: whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him; whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous noon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,—
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,