prepared by nature; a splendid specimen of massy architecture, and the distant view of villages, are alone wanting to render the similitude complete. In the summer, the prairie is covered with long, coarse grass, which soon assumes a golden hue, and waves in the wind like a ripe harvest. Those who have not a personal knowledge of the subject, would be deceived by the accounts which are published of the hight of the grass. It is seldom so tall as travelers have represented, nor does it attain its highest growth in the richest soil. In the low, wet prairies, where the substratum of clay lies near the surface, the center or main stem of this grass, which bears the seed, acquires great thickness, and shoots up to the hight of eight or nine feet, throwing out a few, long, coarse leaves or blades, and the traveler often finds it higher than his head, as he rides through it on horseback. The first coat of grass is mingled with small flowers, the violet, the bloom of the strawberry, and others of the most minute and delicate texture. As the grass increases in size, these disappear, and others, taller and more gaudy, display their brilliant colors upon the green surface, and still later, a larger and coarser succession rises with the rising tide of verdure. The whole of the surface of these beautiful plains, is clad throughout the season of verdure, with every imaginable variety of color, "from grave to gay." It is impossible to conceive a more infinite diversity, or a richer profusion of hues, or to detect any predominating tint, except the green, which forms the beautiful ground, and relieves the exquisite brilliancy of all the others. In the winter, the prairies present a gloomy and desolate scene. The fire has passed over them, and consumed every vegetable substance, leaving the soil bare, and the surface perfectly black. That gracefully waving outline, which was so attractive to the eye when clad in green, is now disrobed of all its ornaments; its fragrance, its notes of joy, and the graces of its landscape, have all vanished, and the bosom of the cold earth, scorched and discolored, is alone visible. The wind sighs mournfully over the black plain; but there is no object to be moved by its influence; not a tree to wave its long arms in the blast, nor a reed to bend its fragile stem; not a leaf, nor even a blade of grass to tremble in the breeze. There is nothing to be seen but the cold, dead earth and the bare mound, which move not; and the traveler with a singular sensation, almost of awe, feels the blast rushing over him, while not an object visible to the eye, is seen to stir. Accustomed as the mind is to associate with the action of the wind its operation upon surrounding objects, and to see nature bowing and trembling, and the fragments of matter mounting upon the wind, as the storm passes, there is a novel effect produced on the mind of one who feels the current of air rolling heavily over him, while nothing moves around. JAMES HALL. LESSON LXXXVII. THE PRAIRIES. THESE are the gardens of the desert, these As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, Breezes of the South! Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, And pass the prairie-hawk, that, poised on high, Among the palms of Mexico, and vines Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks That from the fountains of Sonora glide Into the calm Pacific; have ye fanned A nobler or a lovlier scene than this? Man hath no part in all this glorious work: The hand that built the firmament hath heaved And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes With herbage, planted them with island groves, And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor For this magnificent temple of the sky, With flowers whose glory and whose multitude As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed, A sacrilegious sound. I think of those And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds In the dim forest, crowded with old oaks, A race that long has passed away Built them; a disciplined and populous race Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields From instruments of unremembered form, The red man came, The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce, Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie-wolf The barriers which they builded from the soil The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped The brown vultures of the wood Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchers, And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast. Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise He rears his little Venice. In these plains Twice twenty leagues Still this great solitude is quick with life. They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds, And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man. A more adventurous colonist than man, Which soon shall fill the deserts. From the ground W. C. BRYANT. LESSON LXXXVIII. GOD SEEN IN NATURE'S WORKS. WHATEVER leads our minds habitually to the Author of the universe; whatever mingles the voice of nature with the revelation of the Gospel; whatever teaches us to see, in all the changes of the world, the varied goodness of Him, in whom 66 we live, and move, and have our being," brings us nearer to the spirit of the Savior of mankind. But it is not only as encouraging a sincere devotion, that these reflections are favorable to Christianity; there is something moreover peculiarly allied to its spirit in such observations of external nature. When our Savior prepared himself for his temptation, his agony, and death, he retired to the wilderness of Judea, to inhale, we may venture to believe, a holier spirit amid its solitary scenes, and to approach to a nearer communion with his Father amid the sublimest of his works. It is with similar feelings, and to worship the same Father, that the Christian is permitted to enter the temple of nature; and, by the spirit of his religion, there is a language infused into the objects which she presents, unknown to the worshiper of former times. To all, indeed, the same objects appear, the same sun shines, the same heavens are open; but to the Christian alone it is permitted to know the Author of these things; to see his spirit |