"May I ask what that something is, which you think assists us to appreciate the beauty of a landscape?"
"Why, sir—perhaps I am wrong, you certainly know better than I—but, it appears to me, my growing sense of enjoyment in this scene is due to the memory of the virtues of her whom I constantly connect with this place, and that enjoyment is fixed and augmented by the frame of mind in which I go to, or come from the place of worship."
"If I understand you correctly, you have come to the conclusion that to enjoy nature, our hearts must be touched, and our affections mellowed by earthly sympathies, and our views expanded and elevated by a sense of religious duties."
"Something like that, sir."
"And is not that what is understood by 'LOVE TO GOD, AND LOVE TO MAN?'"
POETRY.—A SONG.
BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
To me the world's an open book
Of sweet and pleasant poetry;
I read it in the running brook
That sings its way toward the sea:
It whispers in the leaves of trees,
The swelling grain, the waving grass.
And in the cool fresh evening breeze
That crisps the wavelets as they pass.
The flowers below—the stars above—
In all their bloom and brightness given,
Are, like the attributes of love,
The poetry of earth and heaven.
Thus Nature's volume, read aright,
Attunes the soul to minstrelsy,
Tinging life's clouds with rosy light,
And all the world with poetry.