Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/173



Who can paint Like Nature? Can Imagination "boast Amid its gay creation, hues like hers? Or can it mix them with that matchless skill, And lose them in each other, as appears In every bud that blows.

is a lesson in each flower, A story in each stream and bower; On every herb o'er which we tread Are written words which, rightly read, Will lead us from earth's fragrant sod, To hope, and holiness, and God!

a flower But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. Happy who walks with Him! whom what he finds Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower, Or what he views of beautiful or grand In Nature, from the broad majestic oak To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, Prompts with remembrance of a present God.

the vast, and the minute, we see The unambiguous footsteps of the God Who gives its lustre to an 's wing, And wheels His throne upon the.