OF BEAUTY.
* * * * *
There is beauty in the rolling clouds, and placid shingle beach,
In feathery snows and whistling winds, and dim electric skies;
There is beauty in the rounded woods dank with heavy foliage,
In laughing fields and dented hills, the valley and its lake;
There is beauty in the gullies, beauty on the cliffs, beauty in sun and shade,
In rocks and rivers, seas and plains—the earth is drowned in beauty!
Beauty coileth with the water-snake, and is cradled in the shrew-mouse’s nest;
She flitteth out with evening bats, and the soft mole hid her in his tunnel;
The limpet is encamped upon the shore, and beauty not a stranger to his tent;
The silvery dace and golden carp thread the rushes with her.
She saileth into clouds with an eagle, she fluttereth into tulips with a humming-bird;
The pasturing kine are of her company, and she prowleth with the leopard in his jungle.
Martin F. Tupper.