20 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



But from that ruin shall other cities arise, and a nobler race of frank- 

 browed men shall pass in the streets, and maidens fair walk on the 

 green lawns to welcome in the morns of spring. There shall be 

 flowery islands in the future, and the summer's-shine shall fall on 

 meadows green, on which the children of the future men shall play. 

 The young birds shall carol from their leafy homes, as if the trees 

 sang forth themselves, and the new generation shall have the dreams 

 of the present all fulfilled. 



Heart ! be thou like the grass ; welcome man and woman with thy 

 smile : be thou green in winter as in summer ; assort thyself with 

 brown bees, and homely things that bless the world, keeping thy 

 blossom by thee to gild the pathway of the future. Thy days are as 

 few as the grass ; as the grass that groweth to-day, and to-morrow is 

 cast into the oven. *' For euen as the flower of the grasse shall he 

 vanyshe awaye. The sunne ryseh wyth heete, and the grasse widereth, 

 and his flower falleth away, and the beautie of the fashion of it pe- 

 risheth."* Heart! be thou like the grass — fragrant, fair, gentle, and 

 fertile in good works ; for which God be thanked, for its beauties are 

 beyond description, and its uses beyond enumeration. 



* Bible, 1551. 



