d bud, and blade there lies
The crystal tissue, trembling with soft light,
As the young day moves gaily up the sky,
And sheds his guerdon o'er the waiting Earth.

O what a charm there is in purity,
Of morn, life, love, and nature all. This scene,
So clear and calm and peaceful, that it fills
The soul with its o'erflowing blessedness,
Pales 'neath the glare of noon, and man's rude lust,
To scarce the semblance of its former self.
But with the heart--O God! Thy richest gift
Is Innocence, that like a quenchless spring
Of everlasting light, encircles life
With beauty and unfading radiance,
Keeping all sense and feeling fresh and sweet
As the untainted breathing of the morn.

How lovely is all nature, separate
From man! There is no whispering of strife
Or sorrow here, naught to inform the soul
Of man's deep wretchedness and sin. No lust
To justify the wretch who binds his soul
In the drear darkness of a murky cell,
Scraping for gold as beasts do in the earth
For carrion, and counting life-time out
By ducats; closing house and heart alike
To the benignant sunshine. If our hearts
Could lave in Lethe's cleansing stream sometimes,
Till evil vanished from its memory,
And left a virgin tablet for the pen
Of Nature, life would be as sweet as love.

What far extremes of woe and blessedness
This earth can yield! The woe create, the joy
Begotten from a never failing womb;
Woe! fashioned out of craft, and guile, and sin,
That hungereth for prey, till, as it were,
The mother eats the babe that sucks her breast;
The joy! inherent and diffused like light
From the eternal glory of the sun,
Gather'd from all things, sight, and sound, and sense,
E'en from the very breeze that whispers us
Of yielded sweetness and unhoarded gifts.

O God! preserve my heart emancipate
From all world feelings that must die with Time,
Like things unworthy of Eternity;
Sow in my spirit seed that may spring up
And bud and increase throughout life, until
It blossom fully in the light of heaven,
Grant that the evil of the world may ne'er
Harden my heart against the sweet impress
Of Beauty, that beholding there, she see
No mirror'd image of her loveliness!

Methinks life were a curse if separate
From loving of the Good and Beautiful!
To gaze upon that azure dome, so blue
And penetrate with sunshine through and through,
As lover's eyes wi