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Meet 'tis to watch and spy,

The laughing Orient, like a chubby child,

Bringing new joyousness to wood and wild,

To ocean, earth, and sky.

The groups of early flowers

To th' enamoured sun their bosoms ope—

Apt emblems of the welcome birth of Hope,

In life's oft darkened bowers.

Pass to the green hill-side,

And let us wander where the wild flowers grow,

Gaze on the sedgy stream's calm depths below,

Where gentle minnows glide.

The sheltered cuckoo's notes,

In the young sunshine, echo on the ear—

A moving voice, from all around, is here!—

Hymns from a thousand throats:—

The spirit grows the more

Refined and holy, as we stand and gaze

Upon the landscape, brightening in the blaze

That gilds both land and shore.

All objects, far and near,

The light of morn illumines; it is now

That man can walk erect with glowing brow,

And heart devoid of fear.

And, lo! there is a stir

In yonder village, bosomed in the dell,

Like a meek babe, loved by its mother well,

And loving nought but her!

Where claims the eye to rest?

Earth has a balmy look, and so has Heaven;

And thoughts, like mazy clouds through ether driven,

Float in th' enraptured breast.

The sylvan haunts, where youth

Roams, fancy led, all glorious in their hue;

The quaint sequestered spots and paths we view,

Where Age consorts with Truth.

Read we of aught that wakes

High inspiration in the soul, in scenes like these?

The tufted trees' fantastic tapestries—

Romantic knolls and brakes;

The hill-enskirted glen,

Where bound the wild deer; and the huntsman's horn

Sounds from afar, a welcome to the morn,

Till Echo sounds again!

And more than all, the old

And pyramidal mountains, that with time

Have stood, defying change, and storm, and clime,

As none else of earth's mould

Hath done: the sun embrowns,

But does not scorch them; rain, and wind, and snow,

Renew them, not destroy; no waste they know,

But lasting glory crowns.

Still to the heart endeared

Are sights like this we gaze on. Do we deem

That they are other than a privileged dream?—

One that the mind has reared!