How sweet it is to link again
Estranged affection's broken chain,
And soothe the tortured breast;
To be the favored one that may
Recall to love hearts torn away,
And thus by both be blest!
Rich men and proud, who fain would find
Some new indulgence for the mind,
Some scheme to gladden self,
If ye will feed the famish'd poor,
Happiness shall ye buy, far more
Than with a world of pelf:
Ye cannot see the tearful eye,
Ye cannot hear the grateful sigh,
Nor feel yourself belov'd
By the pale children of distress,
Whom ye have been the gods to bless,
With hearts unthrill'd, unmoved.
And you, who love your fellow-men,
And feel a sacred transport when
Ye can that love fulfil,
Go, rescue yonder tortured brute,
Its gratitude indeed is mute,
But, oh! it loves you still.
Children of science, who delight
To track out wisdom's beauty bright
In earth, or sea, or sky,
While nature's lovely face you scan,
Go, seek and save some erring man,
And set his hope on high.
But still, reflect that all the good
Ye do, demands your gratitude,
For 'tis a heavenly boon,
That should for its own sake be sought,
Though to itself is kindly brought
A blessing sweet and soon:
It is reward to imitate,
In comforting the desolate,
That gracious One who stood
A ransom for a ruined world,
And still, himself to ruin hurl'd,
Found evil for his good.
And what an argument for pray'r
Hath yearning mercy written there,
For if indeed "to give
Is blessed rather than the gift"
Go thou, to heaven the voice uplift,
And then thou must receive.
COME, and behold with curious eye
These records of a world gone by,
These tell-tales of the youth of time,-
When changes, sudden, vast, sublime
(From chaos, and fair order's birth,
To the last flood that drowned the earth),
Shattered the crust of this young world,
Into the seas its mountain's hurl'd,
And upon boisterous surges strong
Bore the broad ruins far along
To pave old ocean's shingly bed,
While bursting upwards in their stead
The lowest granites towering rose
To pierce the clouds with crested snows.
Where future Apennine or Alp
Bared to high heaven its icy scalp.
Look on these coins of kingdoms old,
These medals of a broken mould;
These corals in the green hill-side,
These fruits and flowers beneath the tide,
These struggling flies, in amber found,
These huge pine forests underground,
These flint sea-eggs, with curious bosses,
These fibred ferns, and fruited mosses
Lying as in water spread,
And stone-struck by some Gorgon's head.
The chambers of this graceful shell,
So delicately formed, so well
None can declare what years have past
Since life hath tenanted it last,
What countless centuries have flown
Since age hath made the shell a stone;
Gaze with me on those jointed stems,
A living plant of starry gems,
And on that sea-flower, light and fair,
Which shoots its leaves in agate there;
Behold these giant ribs in stone
Of mighty monsters, long unknown,
That in some antemundane flood
Wallow'd on continents of mud,
A lizard race, but well for man,
Dead long before his day began,
Monsters, through Providence extinct,
That crocodiles to fishes link'd;
And shreds of other forms beside
That sported in the yeasty tide,
Or flapping far with dragon-wing
On the slow tortoise wont to spring,
Or ambush'd in the rushes rank
Watch'd the dull mammoth on the bank,
Or lov'd the green and silent deep,
Or on the coral-bank to sleep,
Where many a rood, in passive strength,
The scaly reptiles lay at length.
For there are wonders, wondrous strange,
To those who will through nature range,
And use the mind, and clear the eye,
And let instruction not pass by:
There are deep thoughts of tranquil joy
For those who thus their hearts employ,
And trace the wise design that lurks
In holy nature's meanest works,
And by the torch of truth discern
The happy lessons good men learn;
O there are pleasures, sweet and new,
To those who thus creation view,
And as on this. wide world they look,
Regard it as one mighty book,
Inscribed within, before, behind,
With workings of the Master-mind;
Ray'd with that wisdom, which excels
In framing worlds, -or fretting shells, -
Filled with that mercy, which delights
In blessing men, or guiding mites, -
With silent deep benevolence,
With hidden mild Omnipotence,
With order's everlasting laws,
With seen effect, and secret cause,
Justice and truth in all things rife,
Filling the world with love and life,
And teaching from creation round
How good the God of all is found,
His handiwork how vast, how kind,
How preärrang'd by clearest mind,
How glorious in his own estate,
And in his smallest works, how Great!
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