THE IDOL WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?

THE IDOL.

Whatever passes as a cloud between

The mental eye of faith, and things unseen,
Causing that better world to disappear,
Or seem less lovely and its hope less dear—
This is our world, our idol, though it bear
Affection's impress or devotion's air!

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?

Thy neighbour? It is he whom thou
Hast power to aid and bless,
Whose aching heart and burning brow
Thy soothing hand may press.

Thy neighbour? 'T is the fainting poor
Whose eye with want is dim,

Whom hunger sends from door to door ;—
Go thou and succour him.

Thy neighbour? 'T is that weary man,
Whose years are at their brim,

Bent low with sickness, cares, and pain ;-
Go thou and succour him.

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WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?

Thy neighbour? 'T is the heart bereft

Of every earthly gem;

Widow and orphan, helpless left ;-
Go thou and shelter them.

Thy neighbour? Yonder toiling slave,
Fettered in thought and limb;
Whose hopes are all beyond the grave;—
Go thou and ransom him.

Whene'er thou meet'st a human form
Less favour'd than thine own,
Remember 't is thy neighbour worm,
Thy brother, or thy son.

Oh, pass not, pass not heedless by ;
Perhaps thou can'st redeem

The breaking heart from misery ;—
Go share thy lot with him.

It is in small things that brotherly kindness and charity consist.

THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.

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THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.

Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whose cause is God. He feeds the sacred fire
By which the mighty process is maintain'd;
Who sleeps not, is not weary: in whose sight
Slow circling ages are as transient days;
Whose work is without labour; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts,

And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
One spirit-His

*

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,
Rules universal Nature. Not a flower

But shews some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In Nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,

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FIELD FLOWERS.

Prompts with a remembrance of a present God.
His presence, who made all so fair, perceiv'd,
Makes all still fairer. As with him no scene
Is dreary, so with him all seasons please.
Though winter had been none, had man been true,
And earth be punish'd for its tenant's sake,
Yet not in vengeance; as this smiling sky,
So soon succeeding such an angry night,
And these dissolving snows, and this clear stream
Recovering fast its liquid music prove.

COWPER.

FIELD FLOWERS.

Flowers of the field, how meet you seem

Man's frailty to pourtray,

Blooming so fair in morning's beam

Passing at eve away;

Teach this, and oh! though brief your reign,

Sweet flowers, ye shall not live in vain.

Go, form a monitory wreath

For youth's unthinking brow;

Go, and to busy manhood breathe

What most he fears to know

;

Go, strew the path where age doth tread,

And tell him of the silent dead.

FIELD FLOWERS.

But whilst to thoughtless ones and gay
Ye breathe these truths severe,
To those who droop in pale decay
Have you no word of cheer?
Oh yes, ye weave a double spell,

And death and life betoken well.

Go, then, where wrapt in fear and gloom
Fond hearts and true are sighing,
And deck with emblematic bloom
The pillow of the dying;

And softly speak, nor speak in vain,
Of your long sleep and broken chain.

And say that He who from the dust
Recalls the slumbering flower;
Will surely visit those who trust
His mercy and His power;

Will mark where sleeps their peaceful clay,

And roll ere long the stone away.

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MORAL OF FLOWERS.

Study to the mind is what exercise is to the body, neither can

be active or vigorous without proper exertion.