When my time comes to quit this pleasing scene,
And drop from out the busy life of men;
When I shall cease to be where I have been
So willingly, and ne'er may be again;
When my abandoned tabernacle's dust
With dust is laid, and I am counted dead;
Ere I am quite forgotten, as I must
Be in a little while, let this be said:
He loved this good God's world, the night and day,
Men, women, children (these he loved the best);
Pictures and books he loved, and work and play,
Music and silence, soberness and jest;
His mind was open, and his heart was gay;
Green be his grave, and peaceful be his rest!
ALONE WITH NATURE.
The rain came suddenly, and to the shore
I paddled, and took refuge in the wood,
And, leaning on my paddle, there I stood
In mild contentment watching the downpour,
Feeling as oft I have felt heretofore,
Rooted in nature, that supremest mood
When all the strength, the peace, of solitude,
Sink into and pervade the being's core.
And I have thought, if man could but abate
His need of human fellowship, and find
Himself through Nature, healing with her balm
The world's sharp wounds, and growing in her state,
What might and greatness, majesty of mind,
Sublimity of soul and Godlike calm!
THE WORKS OF MAN AND OF NATURE.
Man's works grow stale to man: the years destroy
The charm they once possessed; the city tires;
The terraces, the domes, the dazzling spires
Are in the main but an attractive toy—
They please the man not as they pleased the boy;
And he returns to Nature, and requires
To warm his soul at her old altar fires,
To drink from her perpetual fount of joy.
It is that man and all the works of man
Prepare to pass away; he may depend
On naught but what he found her stores among;
But she, she changes not, nor ever can;
He knows she will be faithful to the end,
For ever beautiful, for ever young.