Moral and Religious Quotations from the Poets: Topically Arranged ...

And the pure stream, in liquid gushes singing, Riches make wings, and grandeur is a dream. Gladly to bless the thirsty plain;

And from the laden bee, when homeward winging

Its tuneful flight, doth not disdain
To hear the song of praise.

BETHUNE.

The Father spake! In grand reverberations Through space rolled on the mighty musictide,

While to its low, majestic modulations,

The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside. And wheresoever, in his rich creation,

Sweet music breathes-in wave, or bird, or soul,

"Tis but the faint and far reverberation Of that grand tune to which the planets roll! MRS. OSGOOD.

Hail heaven-born music! by thy power we raise

The uplifted soul to acts of highest praise;
O! I would die with music melting round,
And float to bliss upon a sea of sound.

HOPKINSON.

The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him ignoble graves.

COWPER.

We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works Die too: the deep foundations that we lay, Time plows them up, and not a trace remains. We build with what we deem eternal rock; A distant age asks where the fabric stood; And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, The undiscoverable secret sleeps.

COWPER.

Gather ye rose-buds as ye may,
Old time is still a flying,
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

HERRICK.

Ere Mirth can well her comedy begin,
The tragic demon oft comes thundering in,
Confounds the actors, damps the merry show,
And turns the loudest laugh to deepest woe.

WILSON.

MYSTERY-NATIVITY-NATURE.

God keeps his holy mysteries

Just on the outside of man's dream,
In diapason slow, we think

To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath his eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.

MRS. BROWNING.

O God, for thee

There is no weight nor measure; none can

mount

Up to thy mysteries; reason's brightest spark, Though kindled by thy light, in vain would try

To trace thy councils, infinite and dark;

221

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous
then!

Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought and power
divine.

MILTON.

By swift degrees the love of nature works,
And warms the bosom; till, at last sublimed
To rapture and enthusiastic heat,
We feel the present Deity, and taste

And thought is lost ere thought can soar so The joy of God to see a happy world.

THE NATIVITY—(See CHRISTMAS.) Nature all o'er is consecrated ground,

Teeming with growths immortal and divine.

YOUNG.

NATURE.

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

THOMSON.

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is nature's progress, when she lectures man
In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand transition, that there lives and
works

A soul in all things, and that soul is God.
COWPER.

There's not a plant or flower below,
But makes Thy glories known;
And clouds arise and tempests blow,
By order from Thy throne.

WATTS.

Earth with her ten thousand flowers;
Air with all its beams and showers;
Ocean's infinite expanse;
Heaven's resplendent countenance-
All around, and all above,
Hath this record: "God is love."
ANONYMOUS.

I read His awful name emblazoned high,
With golden letters, on the illumined sky;
Nor less the mystic characters I see
Wrought in each flower, inscribed on every
tree;

In every leaf that trembles to the breeze,
I hear the voice of God among the trees.
MRS. BARBAULD.

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the

sun

Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living
flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

COLERIDGE.

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise.
COLERIDGE.

Nature's self, which is the breath of God,
Or his pure word by miracle revealed.
WORDSWORTH.

I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,

Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power

Great Ruler of all nature's frame! we own To chasten and subdue.

thy power divine;

We hear thy breath in every storm, for all the

winds are thine.

WORDSWORTH.

Thou hast not left

Thy mercy tempers every blast to them that Thyself without a witness, in these shades,

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