ANNUAL ADDRESS. 129 



tions may grasp the higher pleasures of the intellectual and the 

 spiritual. He reads of the storms and strifes and bickerings of 

 the world about him, without wishing to participate in its broils. 

 His life flows on in quiet and in peace, like the gentle current 

 of his meadow stream, and his ambition is sati.<fied with his lot. 



" There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 

 A clearer, sweeter spot than all the rest ; 

 Where man. Creation's tyrant, casts aside 

 His sword and scepter, pageantrj^ and pride. 

 While in his softened looks, benignly blend 

 The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. 



"Here woman reigns: the mother, daughter, wife. 

 Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life ; 

 In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, 

 An angel guard of love and graces lie ; 

 Around her knees domestic duties meet, 

 And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet " 



When the fancy of the poet and the artist would rise to the 

 highest inspiration and rhapsody, it flies the crowded cities and 

 the busy haunts of men, and revels in the beauties and delights 

 of nature. It pictures the orient morn that spreads over the 

 Eastern sky its roseate hue, and heralds up the burnished path- 

 way the rising God of day. It catches the gleamings of the 

 golden sunset, as they linger upon the fringes of the clouds, and 

 dart far up in the blue canopy in silver pencilings of light. It 

 rests its tired pinion on the mountain crag, and gazes with rap- 

 ture on sparkling cascades, dashing waterfalls, and gliding 

 rivers, smiling valleys, sleeping lakes, murmuring forests, and 

 on distant plain and glen. It watches with intense delight the 

 moving storm clouds, as they sail in the air, like black fleets ; 

 to meet in deadly conflict in the war of elements, darting at 

 each other spears of lightning mid mutterings of thunder. 

 Then in pensive mood, it sits in shady grov.s, watclies the 

 bursting bud, admires the green foliage trembling on the ten- 

 drils of the graceful tree, and attempts to mimic the bird's 

 notes of rature's music land. It explores the latent embryo of 



vegetation, and trains up the spiral blade, to the blooming 

 flower and ripening fruit, then in serene and cloudless night, in 

 the softening light of the harvest morn, "it spreads its flight 

 from star to star, from world to luminous world." These lovely 

 o 



