PART I.

NATURE.

MORNING HYMN OF A HERMIT.

JOHN STERLING.

SWEET Morn! from countless cups of gold
Thou liftest reverently on high
More incense fine than earth can hold,
To fill the sky.

One interfusion wide of love,

Thine airs and odors moist ascend, And, 'mid the azure depths above, With light they blend.

The lark, by his own carol blest,

From the green harbors eager springs; And his large heart in little breast

Exulting sings.

On lands and seas, on fields and woods,

And cottage roofs and ancient spires, O Morn! thy gaze creative broods, While Night retires.

Aloft, the mountain ridges beam
Above their quiet steeps of gray;
The eastern clouds with glory stream.
And vital day.

By valleys dank, and river's brim,

Through corn-clad fields and wizard groves, O'er dazzling tracks and hollows dim, One spirit roves.

The broad-helmed oak-tree's endless growth,
The mossy stone that crowns the hill,
The violet's breast, to gazers loath,
In sunshine thrill.

A joy from hidden paradise

Is rippling down the shiny brooks, With beauty like the gleams of eyes In tenderest looks.

Where'er the vision's boundaries glance,
Existence swells with teeming power,
And all illumined earth's expanse

Inhales the hour.

MORNING HYMN OF A HERMIT.

Not sands, and rocks, and seas immense,
And vapors thin, and halls of air,
Not these alone, with kindred glance,
The splendor share.

The fly his jocund round inweaves,
With choral strain the birds salute
The voiceful flocks, and nothing grieves,
And naught is mute.

In Man, O Morn! a loftier good,
With conscious blessing, fills the soul,
A life by reason understood,

Which metes the whole.

With healthful pulse, and tranquil fire,
Which plays at ease in every limb,
His thoughts unchecked to heaven aspire,
Revealed in him.

To thousand tasks of fruitful hope,
With skill against his toil he bends,
And finds his work's determined scope
Where'er he wends.

From earth, and earthly toil and strife,
To deathless aims his love may rise;
Each dawn may wake to better life,
With purer eyes.

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Such grace from thee, O God! be ours,
Renewed with every morning's ray,
And freshening still with added flowers
Each future day.

To Man is given one primal star;

One day-spring's beam has dawned below. From Thine our inmost glories are, With Thine we glow.

Like earth, awake, and warm and bright
With joy, the spirit moves and burns;
So up to thee, O Fount of Light!
Our light returns.

MORNING THOUGHTS.

MARY HOWITT.

THE summer sun is shining
Upon a world so bright!

The dew upon each grassy blade,
The golden light, the depth of shade,
All seem as they were only made

To minister delight.

MORNING THOUGHTS.

From giant trees, strong branched,
And all their veiny leaves,
From little birds that madly sing,
From insects fluttering on the wing,
Ay, from the very meanest thing,
My spirit joy receives.

I think of angel voices

When the birds' songs I hear;
Of that celestial city, bright
With jacinth, gold, and chrysolite,
When with its blazing pomp of light
The morning doth appear.

I think of that great river

That from the throne flows free, Of weary pilgrims on its brink,

Who, thirsting, have come down to drink; Of that unfailing stream I think

When earthly streams I see.

I think of pain and dying,

As that which is but naught,

When glorious morning, warm and bright,

With all its voices of delight,

From the chill darkness of the night,

Like a new life, is brought.

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