eyes, so rich with life,
Is a closed book--a fair illumined scroll,
Traced in strange characters, unknown to you.
Would you unfold the mystery, and read
The record the eternal hand of God
Has, of himself, on Nature's tablets graved?
You must explore another wondrous book,
Of deeper interest far--the book of life--
The glorious volume of unsullied truth!--
Time's rapid and undeviating march
Tramples down empires, blots out names that once
Bid fair for perpetuity of fame.
Truth is alone eternal as the God
Who on this everlasting basis placed
His own immutable and moveless throne.
Time to these writings daily adds new force,
Deepening the traces of Jehovah's love,
His fathomless, unbounded love to man.--
Peruse this volume, and then walk abroad
And meditate in silence on the scenes
Which lately charmed your unassisted sense,
Till your soul burns within you, and breaks forth
In holy hymns of gratitude and praise.--

Faith gives a grandeur to created things,
Beyond the poet's lay or painter's art,
Or upward flight of Fancy's eagle wing;--
Earth is the vista through which heaven is seen
By him who, journeying through life's narrow vale,
Seeks in the objects which around him rise
To hold communion with his God! to trace
The wisdom, goodness, majesty, and love,
That clothed the lilies of the field, and twined
The simple diadem of buds and leaves,
So rich in their diversity of shade,
Round Nature's brow,--and o'er the rugged hills
Cast the light floating veil of purple haze,
Which harmonizes to its own soft hue
The broken precipice and barren heath.
Here admiration may have ample scope:
The spirit soaring upward drinks in light
From other worlds, and in the choral song
Of happy birds among the forest bowers,
Hears the seraphic and harmonious strains
That angels chant around the eternal throne!--
To him there is an anthem in the breeze,
A burst of triumph in the thunder's peal,
Which, slowly rolling through the troubled air,
Strikes man with terror, and yet praises God!--

O'er Fancy's glass another shadow flits,
Which shows a bolder aspect than the gay
Impassioned votaries of Nature wear.
Mark his majestic port, his eagle eye,
The stern erection of his haughty brow,
Partially shaded by the snowy plumes
That lightly wave and wanton in the breeze.--
Is this a pensioner of hope?--Is this
A dreamer of wild dreams?--All eyes are turned
To gaze upon him, as with measured step
The weaponed warrior slowly pas