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NATURE.

Lesson of

For I have learned

To look on Nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,

Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.

Lines, composed on revisiting the Banks of the Wye.
W. WORDSWORTH.

NATURE. Teaching of

Ere we meet again you will turn sad and heavy eyes to those quiet boughs, and when you hear the birds sing from them, and see the sunshine come aslant from crag and housetop to be the playfellow of their leaves, learn the lesson that nature teaches you, and strive through darkness to the light!

Zanoni, Book 1. Chap. IV.-E. B. LYTTON.

NATURE'S FAITHFULNESS.

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.

Lines composed on revisiting the banks of the Wye.
W. WORDSWORTH.

NATURE Spoiled by Man. Beauty of

Strange that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for gods, a dwelling-place,

And every charm and grace hath mix'd
Within the paradise she fix'd,

There man, enamour'd of distress,
Should mar it into wilderness,

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour;
Nor claims the culture of his hand
To bloom along the fairy land,
But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him-but to spare!
Strange that where all is peace beside,
There passion riots in her pride,
And lust and rapine wildly reign
To darken o'er the fair domain.

NATURE.

The Giaour, Line 46.—LORD BYRON.

The one touch of

In the tale of human passion, in past ages, there is something of interest even in the remoteness of the time. We love to feel within us the bond which unites the most distant eras-men, nations, customs,

perish; the affections are immortal!-they are the sympathies which unite the ceaseless generations.

The Last Days of Pompeii, Book III. Chap. II.
E. B. LYTTON.

NATURES. Low

Base natures ever grudge at things above them,
And hate a power they are too much obliged to,
When fears are on them, then their kindest wishes
And best rewards attend the gallant warrior;
But dangers vanish'd, infamous neglect,
Ill usage, and reproach, are all his portion;

Or at the best, he's wedded to hard wants,
Robb'd of that little hire he toiled and bled for.
The fall of Caius Marius, Act v. Scene II.

T. OTWAY.

NAUTILUS. Description of a

Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel-upward from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark

Put out a tier of oars on either side,

Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.

The Pelican Island.-JAMES MONTGOMERY.

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I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. Letter to Lord Chesterfield.-Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

NEST. Description of a Thrush's

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the sound
With joy-and oft an unintruding guest,

I watched her secret toils from day to day; How true she warped the moss to form her nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay. And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,

There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue :

And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky. A Sonnet.-JOHN CLARE.

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A master passion is the love of news,
Not music so commands, nor so the Muse:
Give poets claret, they grow idle soon;
Feed the musician and he's out of tune.

The Newspaper.-G. CRABBE.

NIGHT. Descriptions of

Behold the world

Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paus'd

From trouble and turmoil.

Time: A Poem.-H. K. WHITE.

When twilight fades, steal forth the constellations

bright;

Below, 'tis day that lives,-in upper air the night.

Strung Pearls.—RUCKERT.

And Night, with gentle step and melancholy, Breathes low through heaven; with her comes love the holy

Phoebus the lover rests

Be all life, rest and love!

NIGHT in SWEDEN.

Evening.-SCHILLER.

Description of a

The sun does not set till ten o'clock at night, and the children are at play in the streets an hour later. The windows and doors are all open, and you may sit and read till midnight without a candle. O how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless yet unclouded day, descending upon earth with dews, and shadows, and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites to-day with yesterday! How beautiful the silent hour, when morning and evening thus sit

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