h May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,
And dews about their feet may never fail?"

[39] This will remind the reader of a fine passage in _Edwin the
Fair_, on the specific differences in the sounds made by the
ash, the elm, the fir, &c., when moved by the wind; and of
some lines by Landor on flowers speaking to each other; and
of something more exquisite than either, in _Consuelo_--the
description of the flowers in the old monastic garden, at
"the sweet hour of prime."

In the Essay, entitled _Theodicaea Novissima_, from which the following
passages are taken to the great injury of its general effect, he sets
himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the
existence of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being
like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit
of his friend's words,--

"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

"Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near."

It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavor to get
nearer God--to assert his eternal Providence, and vindicate his ways to
men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might
have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains
where he found it--his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and
there across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied
night--the jaws of darkness do devour it up--this secret belongs to God.
Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick
cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or
will ever, come,--over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to
whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night
shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a
certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits,
in this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly
says; and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a
clean heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good
to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to
criticize the speculations of others--it is a wise and pious saying of
Augustin, _Verius cogitatur Deus, quam dicitur; et verius est quam
cogitatu