56 NATUBE IN THE NATURE POETS. 
Favoured as ours — transgressors from the Avomb, 
And hasting to a grave, 5''et doomed to rise, 
And to possess a brighter heaven than yours ? 
As one who, long detained on foreign shores, 
Pants to return, and when he sees afar 
His country's weather-bleached and battered rocks, 
. . , So I with animated hopes behold, 
And many an aching wish, your beamy fires. 
That show like beacons in the blue abyss. 
Ordained to guide the embodied spirit home 
From toilsome life to never-ending rest. 
. Love kindles as I gaze, I feel desires 
That give assurance of their own success. 
And that, infused with heaven, must thither tend." 
Sncli are tbe feelings of the Christian when he beholds the 
most glorious works of the Creator. Nor can he rightly hear 
their message until he is at peace with Grod. Then, and 
only then, 
"A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not 
Till Thou hast touched them; 'tis the voice of song, 
A loud hosanna sent from all Thy works ; 
Which he tha,t hears it v»^ith a shout repeats. 
And adds his rapture to the general praise." 
With this example of the nature poet's loftiest strain we 
conclude. As we read these things, or write them, we are 
conscious that, as we grow older, things are not with us as 
vividly or as delightfully as they were. As Wordsworth 
laments, in his immortal Ode on Immortality," while at 
the same time he recognises a delightful compensation : 
" There hath passed away a glorj^ from the earth. 
. . . The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears, 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
