BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



GRASS AND OTHER GREEN THINGS. 



What a desert-like spot would this life of ours be, 

 If, amid sands of sin, no glimpse could we see 



Of some green-knotted garland of grass, — 

 Some oasis bright, a glad hope to impart. 

 That the sun of the sky, and the sun of the heart, 



Still abide in the road we must pass. 



Johnson Sarker. 



The golden-belted bees humm'd in the air, 

 The tall silk-grasses bent and waved along. 



Thomas Miller. 



We cannot pass a blade of grass unheeded by the way, 



For it whispers to our thoughts, and we its silent voice obey. 



J. E. Carpenter. 



It is a significant fact, that Nature paints all her pictures with very- 

 few colours. The scenery of the whole world, with all its diversities 

 of hill and dale, land and sea, mountain, moorland, or fruitful valley, 

 jungle, waste, or wayside, is painted with little else than two colours. 

 The earth and sky, with their manifold beauty and variety, are painted 

 with but two prominent tints, blue and green. It is very simple ; but 

 with what cunning art does Nature trick out an infinity of wild beauty, 

 dotting each little spot of the broad earth with a picture of its own, 

 which, in all her multitudinous representations, will never be repeated. 

 Philosophers tell us that this blue above and green below is the com- 

 bination which, while giving the heart and the eye an equal satisfac- 



B 



