LITERATURE AND NATURE.
Samuel Waddington. Written for the present collection.
'Mid Cambrian heights around Dolgelly vale,
What time we scaled great Cader's rugged pile,
Or loitered idly where still meadows smile
Beside the Mawddach-stream, or far Cynfael—
Nor tome, nor rhythmic page, nor pastoral tale,
Our summer-sated senses would beguile;
Or lull our ears to melody, the while
The voiceful rill ran lilting down the dale.
In London town once more—behold, once more
The old delight returns! 'Mid heights how vast,
In Milton's verse, through what dim paths we wind;
How Keats's canvas glows, and Wordsworth's lore,
As tarn or torrent pure, by none surpass'd,
Sheds light and love—unfathomed, undefined.
THE LIBRARY.
John Greenleaf Whittier. Sung at the opening of the
Library at Haverhill, Mass.
"Let there be Light!" God spake of old,
And over chaos dark and cold,
And through the dead and formless frame
Of nature, life and order came.
Faint was the light at first that shone
On giant fern and mastodon,
On half-formed plant and beast of prey,
And man as rude and wild as they.
Age after age, like waves o'erran
The earth, uplifting brute and man;
And mind, at length, in symbols dark
Its meanings traced on stone and bark.
On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll,
On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
And lo! the Press was found at last!