The Boarding School; Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils / Consisting of Information, Instruction and Advice, Calculated to Improve the Manners and Form the Character of Young Ladies. To Which Is Added, a Collection of Letters, Written by the Pupils to Their Instructress, Their Friends, and Each Other.

by Hannah Webster Foster

To Thee I bend the knee; to Thee my thoughts

Continual climb; who, with a master hand,

Hast the great whole into perfection touch’d.

By Thee various vegetative tribes,

Wrapt in a filmy net and clad with leaves,

Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew.

By Thee disposed into cogenial foils,

Stands each attractive plant, and sucks, and swells

The juicy tide; a twining mass of tubes.

At Thy command, the vernal sun awakes