SHOW US THE FATHER.-JOHN xiv. 8. MRS SIGOURNEY. HAVE ye not seen Him, when through parted snows And the pure snowdrop bursts its folded screen? When the wild rose that knows no florist's care, Unfoldeth its rich leaves-have ye not seen him there? Have ye not heard Him, when the tuneful rill Casts off its icy chains, and leaps away In thunders echoing loud from hill to hill? In songs of birds, at break of summer's day? Or in the ocean's everlasting roar, Battling the old gray rocks, that sternly guard his shore? Amid the stillness of the Sabbath-morn, When vexing cares in tranquil slumber rest, When in the heart the holy thought is born, And heaven's high impulse warms the waiting breast, Have ye not felt Him, while your kindling prayer Swell'd out in tones of praise, announcing God was there? Show us the Father! If ye fail to trace When to assembled worlds the book of doom is read? 208 (Original.) POETICAL ASPIRATIONS. THE AUTHORESS OF THE "MORAL OF FLOWERS." "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings " AND is it so?" the young aspirant cries, "Let the moon look on me at midnight hour Nor prove, as now, to man—a prison and a tomb!" Fond dreamer! pause! and ask, ere yet thy prayer And ever for one smile uncounted tears do flow! Deem not the poet while entranced he drinks And cheerful song of birds, Eve's dusky shroud Better to knit our sympathies with those Or rave of bliss to meaner souls denied. Of real grief, no living wight may shun— And joys, like flowerets by the torrent's side, Which follow in the rear of duties done And hopes which ever gild those waters as they run. There is a path-oh! better far I ween Than that which leadeth to Parnassus' hill!- To each who fain would taste-to drink his fill. |