Each avenue of feeling--will he deign
To think that such as Thou deserve his aid?
No! when the gust raves, and the floods descend,
Or the frost pinches, Thou may'st, at dim eve,
With forced and fearful love approach his home,
What time, 'mid western mists, the broad, red sun,
Sinking, calls out from heaven the earliest star;
And the crisp blazing of the dry Yule-log
Flickers upon the pictured walls, and lights
By fits the unshutter'd lattice; but, in vain,
Thy chirp repeated earnestly; the flap,
Against the obdurate pane, of thy small wing;--
He hears thee not--he heeds not--but, at morn,
The ice-enamoured schoolboy, early afoot,
Finds thy small bulk beneath the alder stump,
Thy bright eyes closed, and tiny talons clench'd,
Stiff in the gripe of death.

The floating plume
Tells how the wind blows, with a certainty
As great as doth the vessel's full-swoln sheets;
So doth the winged seed; 'tis not alone
In mighty things that we may truliest read
The heart, but in its temper and its tone:--
Thus true Benevolence we ever find
Forgiving, gentle, tremblingly alive
To pity, and unweariedly intent
On all the little, thousand charities,
Which day by day calls forth. Oh! as we hope
Forgiveness of our earthly trespasses,--
Of all our erring deeds and wayward thoughts,--
When Time's dread reckoning comes,--oh! as we hope
Mercy, who need it much, let us, away
From kindness never turning, mould our hearts
To sympathy, and from all withering blight
Preserve them, and all deadening influences:--
So 'twill be best for us. The All-seeing Eye,
Which numbers each particular hair, and notes
From heaven the sparrow's fall, shall pass not o'er
Without approval deeds unmarked by man--
Deeds, which the right hand from the left conceals--
Nor overlook the well-timed clemency,
That soothed and stilled the murmurs of distress.

Enamour'd of all mysteries, in love
With doubt itself, and fond to disbelieve,
We ask not, "if realities be real?"
With Plato, or with Berkeley; but we know
Life comes not of itself, and what hath life,--
However insignificant it seem
To us, whose noblest standard is ourselves,--
Hath been by the Almighty's finger touch'd,
Or ne'er had been at all--it must be so.
Therefore 'tis by comparison alon