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"What with my bairns and sickly wife,"
Quoth Dick, "I'm almost tired of life;
So hard my work, so poor my fare,
"Tis more than mortal man can bear.

"How glorious is the rich man's state !
His house so fine! His wealth so great!
Heaven is unjust, you must agree;
Why all to him? Why none to me?

"In spite of what the Scripture teaches,
In spite of all the parson preaches,
This world (indeed I've thought so long)
Is ruled, methinks, extremely wrong.

"Where'er I look, howe'er I range,
'Tis all confused, and hard, and strange;
The good are troubled and oppress'd,
And all the wicked are the blest."

Quoth John, "Our ignorance is the cause
Why thus we blame our Maker's laws;
Parts of his ways alone we know,

'Tis all that man can see below.

"Seest thou that carpet, not half done, Which thou, dear Dick, hast well begun? Behold the wild confusion there,

So rude the mass, it makes one stare!

"A stranger, ignorant of the trade,

Would say, no meaning's there conveyed ; For where's the middle, where's the border? Thy carpet now is all disorder."

Quoth Dick, "My work is yet in bits,
But still, in every part it fits;

Besides, you reason like a lout

Why, man, that carpet's inside out."

Says John, "Thou say'st the thing I mean,
And now I hope to cure thy spleen;

This world, which clouds thy soul with doubt,
Is but a carpet inside out.

"As when we view these shreds and ends,
We know not what the whole intends;

So, when on earth things look but odd,
They're working still some scheme of God.

"No plan, no pattern, can we trace ;
All wants proportion, truth, and grace,
The motley mixture we deride,

Nor see the beauteous upper side.

"But when we reach that world of light, And view those works of God aright,

Then shall we see the whole design,

And own the workman is divine.

"What now seem random strokes, will there All honor and design appear,

Then shall we praise what here we spurned,

For then the carpet shall be turned."

"Thou'rt right," quoth Dick, "no more I'll grumble

That this sad world's so strange a jumble;

My impious doubts are put to flight,

For my own carpet sets me right."

CH. LIT. V. — -20

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But, at length, the changing seasons,
Moistened earth, and sunny sky
Nourished so the growing sapling,
That it branched out, broad and high.

One gay morning in the springtime, Little buds, green, pink, and white, From the tender twigs outreaching, Softly opened to the light.

Two or three warm days of sunshine,

Two or three baptizing showers, And the buds burst forth in blossoms Fair and sweet as summer flowers.

Each white blossom, rosy-tinted,
Sat within-a cup of green,
Rising whence, like fairy torches,'
Golden stamens stood between.

'Mid the petals madly plunging,
With a fierce and noisy glee,
Eager for the hoarded honey,
Buzzed all day the toiling bee.

Girls and boys bend down the branches,
Passing in the morning cool,
Taking nosegays thence to cheer them
Through the lengthened hours of school.

On the boughs the white hen roosted,
There the red-tailed cock was seen,

With their canopies above them,
Like a monarch and his queen.

Breezes came and kissed the blossoms,
Pleased their playfellows to be ;

But, at last, too rudely sportive,

Shook them, tore them from the tree.

Falling thus, all widely scattered,

There a carpet soft they made, Heaps on heaps of velvet petals

Woven in with light and shade.

Still the sturdy cups that held them
Kept their places on the stem,
And within their clasping bosoms
Bore they each a precious gem.

Pushing upward, warm and eager,
Now scarce larger than a pea,
Strove young apples, hard and bitter,
Ripened in the sun to be.

Hard and hairy. Will such atoms
Ever reach to size and strength?

Will the apple robe of beauty

Wrap their meager forms at length?

All the days of June delightful,

When the damask roses grew,
'Mid thick leaves concealed, the apples
Silently were growing, too.

And the robin redbreast saw them
As she sat within her nest,
Patient, motionless, and watchful,
With the eggs beneath her breast.

Larger, larger, all through July
Robin saw them; but before

August came, came forth her young ones,
And she watched the fruit no more.

Robin said, "Of course my children
I must nourish; yet I'm loath
To abandon those young apples,-
Hope it will not stop their growth."

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