OF HIDDEN USES. THE sea-wort (3) floating on the waves, or rolled up high along the shore, Ye counted useless and vile, heaping on it names of contempt: Yet hath it gloriously triumphed, and man been humbled in his ignorance, For health is in the freshness of its savour, and it cumbereth the beach with wealth; Comforting the tossings of pain with its violet-tinctured essence, And by its humbler ashes enriching many proud. Be this, then, a lesson to thy soul, that thou reckon nothing worthless, Before thou heedest not its use, nor knowest the virtues thereof. And herein, as thou walkest by the sea, shall weeds be a type and an earnest Of the stored and uncounted riches lying hid in all creatures of God: Not long to charm away disease, hath the crocus (4) yielded up its bulb, Nor that nutritious root, the boon of far Peru, Nor the many-coloured dahlia, nor the gorgeous flaunting cactus, meadow, In the sycamore's winged fruit, and the facet-cut cones of the cedar; And the pansy and bright geranium live not alone for beauty, When acorns give out fragrant drink, (5) and the sap of the linden is as fatness: For every green herb, from the lotus to the darnel, Is rich with delicate aids to help incurious man. STILL, Mind is up and stirring, and pryeth in the corners of contrivance, Often from the dark recesses picking out bright seeds of truth: Knowledge hath clipped the lightning's wings, and mewed it up for a pur pose, Training to some domestic task the fiery bird of heaven ; Tamed is the spirit of the storm, to slave in all peaceful arts, To walk with husbandry and science; to stand in the vanguard against death: And the chemist balanceth his elements with more than magic skill, Commanding stones that they be bread, and draining sweetness out of wormwood. Yet man, heedless of a God, counteth up vain reckonings, Fearing to be jostled and starved out, by the too prolific increase of his kind; And asketh, in unbelieving dread for how few years to come Will the black cellars of the world yield unto him fuel for his winter. SEARCH Out the wisdom of nature, there is depth in all her doings; And dews are sucked into the cloud, dropping fatness on the world : There is use in the prisoned air, that swelleth the pods of the laburnum ; If the thistle never sprang up, to mock the loose husbandry of indolence, For other while falleth it out that truth, driven to extremities, O, blinded is thine eye, if it see not just aptitude in all things; THE sage, and the beetle at his feet, hath each a ministration to perform ; . The briar and the palm have the wages of life, rendering secret service. Neither is it thus alone with the definite existences of matter; But motion and sound, circumstance and quality, yea, all things have their office. The zephyr playing with an aspen leaf,-the earthquake that rendeth a continent; The moonbeam silvering a ruined arch, the desert wave dashing up a pyramid; The thunder of jarring icebergs, the stops of a shepherd's pipe; The howl of the tiger in the glen,—and the wood-dove calling to her mate; The vulture's cruel rage, the grace of the stately swan; The fierceness looking from the lynx's eye, and the dull stupor of the sloth: To these, and to all, is there added each its USE, though man considereth it lightly; For Power hath ordained nothing which Economy saw not needful. ALL things being are essential to the vast ubiquity of God; Neither is there one thing overmuch, nor freed from honourable servitude. The foreknown station of a rush is as fixed as the station of a king, courses. Man liveth only in himself, but the Lord liveth in all things; And His pervading unity quickeneth the whole creation. Man doeth one thing at once, nor can he think two thoughts together; But God compasseth all things, mantling the globe like air: And we render homage to His wisdom, seeing use in all His creatures, For, perchance, the universe would die, were not all things as they are. OF COMPENSATION. EQUAL is the government of heaven in allotting pleasures among men, Or the straitened appetites of man drink more than their fill of luxury? ALSO, though penury and pain be real and bitter evils, I would reason with the poor afflicted, for he is not so wretched as he seemeth. What right hath an offender to complain, though others escape punishment, If the stripes of earned misfortune overtake him in his sin? Wherefore not endure with resignation the evils thou canst not avert? For the coward pain will flee, if thou meet him as a man : Consider whatever be thy fate, that it might and ought to have been worse. And that it lieth in thy hand to gather even blessing from afflictions: |