Forevermore repeat,
In varied tones and sweet,
That beauty, in and of itself, is good.

O, kind and generous friend, o'er whom
The sunset hues of Time are cast,
Painting, upon the overpast
And scattered clouds of noonday sorrow
The promise of a fairer morrow,
An earnest of the better life to come;
The binding of the spirit broken,
The warning to the erring spoken,
The comfort of the sad,
The eye to see, the hand to cull
Of common things the beautiful,
The absent heart made glad
By simple gift or graceful token
Of love it needs as daily food,
All own one Source, and all are good!
Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach,
Where spent waves glimmer up the beach,
And toss their gifts of weed and shell
From foamy curve and combing swell,
No unbefitting task was thine
To weave these flowers so soft and fair
In unison with his design,
Who loveth beauty everywhere;
And makes in every zone and clime,
In Ocean and in upper air,
“All things beautiful in their time.”

For not alone in tones of awe and power He speaks to man ; The cloudy horror of the thunder-shower His rainbows span ; And, where the caravan Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in air The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there, He gives the weary eye

The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours,
And on its branches dry
Calls out the acacia's flowers;
And, where the dark shaft pierces down
Beneath the mountain roots,
Seen by the miner's lamp alone,
The star-like crystal shoots;
So, where, the winds and waves below,
The coral-branchéd gardens grow,
His climbing weeds and mosses show,
Like foliage, on each stony bough,
Of varied hues more strangely gay
Than forest leaves in autumn's day;-
Thus evermore,
On sky, and wave, and shore,
An all-pervading beauty seems to say:
God's love and power are one; and they,
Who, like the thunder of a sultry day,
Smite to restore,
And they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift
The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift
Their perfume on the air,
Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift,
Making their lives a prayer

VOL. II. 8

THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS, AND OTHER POEMS.

1852.