3. I know, the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature or art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.
LOW PITCH.
1. Mid the flower-wreathed tombs I stand,
Bearing lilies in my hand.
Comrades, in what soldier-grave
Sleeps the bravest of the brave?
Is it he who sank to rest
With his colors round his breast?
Friendship makes his tomb a shrine:
Garlands veil it; ask not mine.
2. God, thou art merciful. The wintry storm,
The cloud that pours the thunder from its womb,
But show the sterner grandeur of thy form.
The lightnings glancing through the midnight gloom,
To Faith's raised eye as calm, as lovely, come
As splendors of the autumnal evening star,
As roses shaken by the breeze's plume,
When like cool incense comes the dewy air,
And on the golden wave the sunset burns afar.
3. O thou Eternal One! whose presence bright
All space doth occupy, all motion guide;
Unchanged through Time's all-devastating flight;
Thou only God!—there is no God beside!
Being above all beings! Three-in-one!
Whom none can comprehend, and none explore;
Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone;
Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er;
Being whom we call God, and know no more!
VERY LOW PITCH.
1. When in the silent night all earth lies hushed
In slumber; when the glorious stars shine out,
Each star a sun, each sun a central light
Of some fair system, ever wheeling on
In one unbroken round, and that again
Revolving round another sun; while all,
Suns, stars, and systems, proudly roll along
In one majestic, ever-onward course,
In space uncircumscribed and limitless,—
Oh! think you then the undebased soul
Can calmly give itself to sleep,—to rest?
2. Go stand upon the heights at Niagara, and listen in awe-struck silence to that boldest most earnest and eloquent, of all Nature's orators! And what is Niagara, with its plunging waters and its mighty roar, but the oracle of God, the whisper of His voice who is revealed in the Bible as sitting above the water-floods forever?
3. The drums are all muffled; the bugles are still;
There's a pause in the valley, a halt on the hill;
And the bearers of standards swerve back with a thrill
Where the sheaves of the dead bar the way:
For a great field is reaped, heaven's garners to fill;
And stern Death holds his harvest to-day.