Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/322

318 To build us tabernacles, and behold Always thy majesty. Fain would we dwell Here at thy feet, and be thy worshipper, And from the weariness and dust of earth Steal evermore away. Yea, were it not That many a care doth bind us here below, And in each care, a duty, like a flower, Thorn-hedged, perchance, yet fed with dews of heaven, And in each duty, an enclosed joy, Which like a honey-searching bee doth sing,— And were it not, that ever in our path Spring up our planted seeds of love and grief, Which we must watch, and bring their perfect fruit Into our Master's garner, it were sweet To linger here, and be thy worshipper, Until death's footstep broke this dream of life.

And now, reader and friend, our hour of pleasant gossip is finished. We have said nothing of the pictured rocks, or the great western caverns, nor wandered together in spirit on the borders of our mighty lakes, or the shores of the "father of waters."

No. I have spoken only of such places as "keepers at home" may readily reach, and which probably you have yourself visited. Still it is as useful, and vastly more convenient, to admire objects near at hand than those far away; and on what the eye hath oft-times