George Moses Horton: Verses about Nature

My brightest hopes are mix'd with tears,
Like hues of light and gloom;
As when mid sun-shine rain appears,
Love rises with a thousand fears,

To pine and still to bloom.
When I have told my last fond tale
In lines of song to thee,
And for departure spread my sail,
Say, lovely princess, wilt thou fail
To drop a tear for me?

O, princess, should my votive strain
Salute thy ear no more,
Like one deserted on the main,
I still shall gaze, alas! but vain,
On wedlock's flow'ry shore.

O death, thy power I own,
Whose mission was to rush,
And snatch the rose, so quickly blown,
Down from its native bush;
The flower of beauty doom'd to pine,
Ascends from this to worlds divine.

Death is a joyful doom,
Let tears of sorrow dry,
The rose on earth but fades to bloom
And blossom in the sky.
Why should the soul resist the hand
That bears her to celestial land.

Then, bonny bird, farewell,
Till hence we meet again;
Perhaps I have not long to dwell
Within this cumb'rous chain,
Till on elysian shores eve meet,
Till grief is lost and joy complete.

'Tis sweet to trace the setting sun
Wheel blushing down the west;
When his diurnal race is run,
The traveller stops the gloom to shun,
And lodge his bones to rest.

Far from the eye he sinks apace,
But still throws back his light
From oceans of resplendent grace,
Whence sleeping vesper paints her face,
And bids the sun good night.

To those hesperian fields by night
My thoughts in vision stray,
Like spirits stealing into light,
From gloom upon the wing of flight,
Soaring from time away.

Our eagle, with his pinions furl'd,
Takes his departing peep,
And hails the occidental world,
Swift round whose base the globes are whirl'd,
Whilst weary creatures sleep.

When auburn Autumn mounts the stage,
And Summer fails her charms to yield,
Bleak nature turns another page,
To light the glories of the field.

At once the vale declines to bloom,
The forest smiles no longer gay;
Gardens are left without perfume,
The rose and lilly pine away.

The orchard bows her fruitless head,
As one divested of her store;
Or like a queen whose train has fled,
And left her sad to smile no more.

That bird which breath'd her vernal song,
And hopp'd along the flow'ry spray,
Now silent holds her warbling tongue,
Which dulcifies the feast of May.

But let each bitter have its sweet,
No change of nature is in vain;
'Tis just alternate cold and heat,
For time is pleasure mix'd with pain.

Sweet memory, like a pleasing dream,
Still lends a dull and feeble ray;
For ages with her vestige teems,
When beauty's trace is worn away.

When pleasure, with her harps unstrung,
Sits silent to be heard no more,
Or leaves them on the willows hung,
And pass-time glee forever o'er;

Still back in smiles thy glory steals
With ev'ning dew drops from thine eye;
The twilight bursting from thy wheels,
Ascends and bids oblivion fly.

Memory, thy bush prevails to bloom,
Design'd to fade, no, never, never,
Will stamp thy vestige on the tomb,
And bid th' immortal live forever.

When youth's bright sun has once declined
And bid his smiling day expire,
Mem'ry, thy torch steals up behind,
And sets thy hidden stars on fire.

The king of day rides on,
To give the placid morning birth;
On wheels of glory moves his throne,
Whose light adorns the earth.

When once his limpid maid
Has the imperial course begun,
The lark deserts the dusky glade,
And soars to meet the sun.

Up from the orient deep,
Aurora mounts without delay,
With brooms of light the plains to sweep,
And purge the gloom away.

Ye ghostly scenes give way,
Our king is coming now in sight,
Bearing the diadem of day,
Whose crest expels the night.

Thus we, like birds, retreat
To groves, and hide from ev'ry eye;
Our slumb'ring dust will rise and meet
Its morning in the sky.

The immaterial sun,
Now hid within empyreal gloom,
Will break forth on a brighter throne,
And call us from the tomb.

Come, thou queen of every creature,
Nature calls thee to her arms ;
Love sits gay on every feature,
Teeming with a thousand charms.

Meet me mid the wreathing bowers,
Greet me in the citron grove,
Where I saw the belle of flowers
Dealing with the blooms of love.

Hark! the lowly dove of Sharon,
Bids thee rise and come away,
From a vale both dry and barren,
Come to one where life is gay.

Come, thou queen of all the forest,
Fair Feronia, mountain glee,
Lovelier than the garden florist,
Or the goddess of the bee.

Come, Sterculus, and with pleasure,
Fertilize the teeming field;
From thy straw, dissolved at leisure,
Bid the lea her bounty yield.

Come, thou queen of every creature,
Nature calls thee to her arms;
Love sits gay on every feature,
Teeming with a thousand charms.

Eternal spring of boundless grace,
It lifts the soul above,
Where God the Son unveils his face,
And shows that Heaven is love.


Love that revolves through endless years--
Love that can never pall;
Love which excludes the gloom of fears,
Love to whom God is all!


Love which can ransom every slave,
And set the pris'ner free;
Gild the dark horrors of the grave,
And still the raging sea.


Let but the partial smile of Heaven
Upon the bosom play,
The mystic sound of sins forgiven,
Can waft the soul away.


The pilgrim's spirits show this love,
They often soar on high;
Languish from this dim earth to move,
And leave the flesh to die.


Sing, oh my soul, rise up and run,
And leave this clay behind;
[illegible] ing thy swift flight beyond the sun,
Nor dwell in tents confined.

'Tis the hope of the noble defeated;
The aim of the marksman is vain;
The wish of destruction completed,
The soldier eternally slain.

When winter succeeds to the summer,
The bird is too chilly to sing;
No music is play'd for the drummer,
No carol is heard on the wing.

The court of a nation forsaken,
An edifice stripp'd of its dome,
Its fame from her pinnacle shaken,
Like the sigh heaving downfall of Rome.

Fall'n, fall'n is the chief of the witty,
The prince of republican power;
The star-crown of Washington City
Descends his political tower.

The gold-plated seat is bespoken,
The brave of the west is before;
The bowl at the fountain is broken,
The music of fame is no more.

No longer a wonderful story
Is told for the brave whig to hear,
Whose sun leaves his circuit of glory,
Or sinks from the light of his sphere.

When on my cottage falls the placid shower,
When ev'ning calls the labourer home to rest,
When glad the bee deserts the humid flower,
O then the bird assumes her peaceful nest.

When sable shadows grow unshapely tall,
And Sol's resplendent wheel descends the west,
The knell of respiration tolls for all,
And Hesper smiles upon the linnet's nest.

When o'er the mountain bounds the fair gazell,
The night bird tells her day-departing jest,
She gladly leaves her melancholy dell,
And spreads her pinions o'er the linnet's nest.

Then harmless Dian spreads her lucid sail,
And glides through ether with her silver crest,
Bidding the watchful bird still pour her tale,
And cheer the happy linnet on her nest.

Thus may some guardian angel bear her light,
And o'er thy tomb, departed genius, rest,
Whilst thou shalt take thy long eternal flight,
And leave some faithful bird to guard thy nest.

Far, far above this world I soar,
And almost nature lose,
Aerial regions to explore,
With this ambitious Muse.

My towering thoughts with pinions rise,
Upon the gales of song,
Which waft me through the mental skies,
With music on my tongue.

My Muse is all on mystic fire,
Which kindles in my breast;
To scenes remote she doth aspire,
As never yet exprest.

Wrapt in the dust she scorns to lie,
Call'd by new charms away;
Nor will she e'er refuse to try
Such wonders to survey.

Such is the quiet bliss of soul,
When in some calm retreat,
Where pensive thoughts like streamlets roll,
And render silence sweet;

And when the vain tumultuous crowd
Shakes comfort from my mind,
My muse ascends above the cloud
And leaves the noise behind.

With vivid flight she mounts on high
Above the dusky maze,
And with a perspicacious eye
Doth far 'bove nature gaze.

Hark! from the mighty Hero's tomb,
I hear a voice proclaim!
A sound which fills the world with gloom,
But magnifies his name.

His flight from time let braves deplore,
And wail from state to state,
And sound abroad from shore to shore,
The death of one so great!

He scorn'd to live a captured slave,
And fought his passage through;
He dies, the prince of all the brave,
And bids the world adieu!

Sing to the mem'ry of his power,
Ye vagrant mountaineers,
Ye rustic peasants drop a shower
Of love for him in tears.

He wields the glittering sword no more,
With that transpiercing eye;
Ceases to roam the mountain o'er,
And gets him down to die!

Still let the nation spread his fame,
While marching from his tomb;
Aloud let all the world proclaim,
Jackson, forever bloom.

No longer to the world confin'd,
He goes down like a star;
He sets, and leaves his friends behind
To rein the steed of war.

Hark! from the mighty Hero's tomb,
I hear a voice proclaim!
A sound which fills the world with gloom,
But magnifies his name!

When smiling Summer's charms are past,
The voice of music dies;
Then Winter pours his chilling blast
From rough inclement skies.

The pensive dove shuts up her throat,
The larks forbear to soar,
Or raise one sweet, delightful note,
Which charm'd the ear before.

The screech-owl peals her shivering tone
Upon the brink of night;
As some sequestered child unknown,
Which feared to come in sight.

The cattle all desert the field,
And eager seek the glades
Of naked trees, which once did yield
Their sweet and pleasant shades.

The humming insects all are still,
The beetles rise no more.
The constant tinkling of the bell,
Along the heath is o'er.

Stern Boreas hurls each piercing gale
With snow-clad wings along,
Discharging volleys mixed with hail
Which chill the breeze of song.

Lo, all the Southern windows close,
Whence spicy breezes roll;
The herbage sinks in sad repose,
And Winter sweeps the whole.

Thus after youth old age comes on,
And brings the frost of time,
And e'er our vigor has withdrawn,
We shed the rose of prime.

Alas! how quick it is the case,
The scion youth is grown--
How soon it runs its morning race,
And beauty's sun goes down.

The Autumn of declining years
Must blanch the father's head,
Encumbered with a load of cares,
When youthful charms have fled.

'Tis sweet to think of home.

When from my native clime,
Mid lonely vallies pensive far I roam,
Mid rocks and hills where waters roll sublime,
'Tis sweet to think of home.

My retrospective gaze
Bounds on a dark horizon far behind,
But yet the stars of homely pleasures blaze
And glimmer on my mind.

When pealing thunders roll,
And ruffian winds howl, threat'ning life with gloom,
To Heaven's kind hand I then commit the whole,
And smile to think of home.

But cease, my pensive soul,
To languish at departure's gloomy shrine;
Still look in front and hail the joyful goal,
The pleasure teeming line.

When on the deep wide sea
I wander, sailing mid the swelling foam,
Tost from the land by many a long degree,
O, then I think of thee.

I never shall forget
The by-gone pleasures of my native shore,
Until the sun of life forbears to set,
And pain is known no more.

When nature seems to weep,
And life hangs trembling o'er the watery tomb,
Hope lifts her peaceful sail to brave the deep,
And bids me think of home.

My favorite pigeon rest,
Nor on the plane of sorrow drop thy train,
But on the bough of hope erect thy nest,
Till friends shall meet again.

Though in the hermit's cell,
Where eager friends to cheer me fail to come,
Where Zeph'rus seems a joyless tale to tell,
No thought is sweet but home.

E'en John the Baptist did not know
Who Christ the Lord could be,
And bade his own disciples go
The strange event to see.


They said, Art thou the one of whom
'Twas written long before?
Is there another still to come,
Who will all things restore?


This is enough, without a name--
Go, tell him what is done;
Behold the feeble, weak and lame,
With strength rise up and run.


This is enough--the blind now see,
The dumb Hosannas sing;
Devils far from his presence flee,
As shades from morning's wing.


See the distress'd, all bath'd in tears,
Prostrate before him fall;
Immanuel speaks, and Lazarus hears--
The dead obeys his call.


This is enough--the fig-tree dies,
And withers at his frown;
Nature her God must recognize,
And drop her flowery crown.


At his command the fish increase,
And loaves of barley swell--
Ye hungry eat, and hold your peace,
And find a remnant still.


At his command the water blushed,
And all was turned to wine,
And in redundance flowed afresh,
And owned its God divine.


Behold the storms at his rebuke,
All calm upon the sea--
How can we for another look,
When none can work as he?


This is enough--it must be God,
From whom the plagues are driven;
At whose command the mountains nod,
And all the Host of Heaven!

Thou delicate blossom; thy short race is ended,
Thou sample of virtue and prize of the brave!
No more are thy beauties by mortals attended,
They now are but food for the worms and the grave.


Thou art gone to the tomb, whence there's no returning,
And left us behind in a vale of suspense;
In vain to the dust do we follow thee mourning,
The same doleful trump will soon call us all hence.


I view thee now launched on eternity's ocean,
Thy soul how it smiles as it floats on the wave;
It smiles as if filled with the softest emotion,
But looks not behind on the frowns of the grave.


The messenger came from afar to relieve thee--
In this lonesome valley no more shalt thon roam;
Bright seraphs now stand on the banks to receive thee,
And cry, 'Happy stranger, thou art welcome at home.'


Thou art gone to a feast, while thy friends are bewailing,
Oh, death is a song to the poor ransom'd slave;
Away with bright visions the spirit goes sailing,
And leaves the frail body to rest in the grave.


Rebecca is free from the pains of oppression,
No friends could prevail with her longer to stay;
She smiles on the fields of eternal fruition,
Whilst death like a bridegroom attends her away.


She is gone in the whirlwind--ye seraphs attend her,
Through Jordan's cold torrent her mantle may lave;
She soars in the chariot, and earth falls beneath her,
Resign'd in a shroud to a peaceable grave.

As smoke from a volcano soars in the air,
The soul of man discontent mounts from a sigh,
Exhaled as to heaven in mystical prayer,
Invoking that love which forbids him to die.

Sweet hope, lovely passion, my grief ever chase,
And scatter the gloom which veils pleasure's bright ray,
O lend me thy wings, and assist me to trace
The flight of my fair one when gone far away.

When the dim star of pleasure sets glimmering alone,
The planet of beauty on life's dreary shore,
And th' fair bird of fancy forever is flown,
On pinions of haste to be heard of no more.

Hope, tell me, dear passion, thou wilt not forget,
To flourish still sweetly and blossom as gay,
Expelling like morning the gloom of regret,
When the lark of affection is gone far away.

If hurried into some unchangeable clime,
Where oceans of pleasure continually roll,
Far, far from the limited borders of time,
With a total division of body and soul.

Hope, tell me, dear passion, which must earth survive,
That love will be sweeter when nature is o'er,
And still without pain though eternity live,
In the triumph of pleasure when time is no more.

O love, when the day-light of pleasure shall close,
Let the vesper of death break on life's dusky even;
Let the faint sun of time set in peace as it rose,
And eternity open thy morning in heaven.

Then hope, lovely passion, thy torch shall expire,
Effusing on nature life's last feeble ray;
While the night maid of love sets her taper on fire,
To guard smiling beauty from time far away.

Sad Moscow, thy fate do I see,
Fire! fire! in the city all cry;
Like quails from the eagle all flee,
Escape in a moment or die.

It looks like the battle of Troy,
The storm rises higher and higher;
The scene of destruction all hearts must annoy,
The whirlwinds, the smoke, and the fire.

The dread conflagration rolls forth,
Augmenting the rage of the wind,
Which blows it from south unto north,
And leaves but the embers behind.

It looks like Gomorrah; the flame
Is moving still nigher and nigher,
Aloud from all quarters the people proclaim,
The whirlwinds, the smoke, and the fire.

A dead fumigation now swells,
A blue circle darkens the air,
With tones as the pealing of bells,
Farewell to the brave and the fair.

O Moscow, thou city of grace,
Consign'd to a dread burning pyre,
From morning to ev'ning with sorrow I trace
The wild winds, the smoke, and the fire.

The dogs in the kennel all howl,
The wether takes flight with the ox,
Appal'd on the wing is the fowl,
The pigeon deserting her box.

With a heart full of pain, in the night
Mid hillocks and bogs I retire,
Through lone, deadly vallies I steer by its light,
The wild storm, the smoke, and the fire.

Though far the crash breaks on my ear,
The stars glimmer dull in the sky,
The shrieks of the women I hear,
The fall of the kingdom is nigh.

heaven, when earth is no more,
And all things in nature expire,
May I thus, with safety, keep distant before
The whirlwinds, the smoke, and the fire.

Creation fires my tongue!
Nature thy anthems raise;
And spread the universal song
Of thy Creator's praise!

Heaven's chief delight was Man
Before Creation's birth--
Ordained with joy to lead the van,
And reign the lord of earth.

When Sin was quite unknown,
And all the woes it brought,
He hailed the morn without a groan
Or one corroding thought.

When each revolving wheel
Assumed its sphere sublime,
Submissive Earth then heard the peal,
And struck the march of time.

The march in Heaven begun,
And splendor filled the skies,
When Wisdom bade the morning Sun
With joy from chaos rise.

The angels heard the tune
Throughout creation ring:
They seized their golden harps as soon
And touched on every string.

When time and space were young,
And music rolled along--
The morning stars together sung,
And Heaven was drown'd in song.

Ye towering eagles soar,
And fan Creation's blaze,
And ye terrific lion's roar,
To your Creator's praise.

Responsive thunders roll,
Loud acclamations sound,
And show your Maker's vast control
O'er all the worlds around.

Stupendous mountains smoke,
And lift your summits high,
To him who all your terrors woke,
Dark'ning the sapphire sky.

Now let my muse descend,
To view the march below--
Ye subterraneous worlds attend
And bid your chorus flow.

Ye vast volcanoes yell,
Whence fiery cliffs are hurled;
And all ye liquid oceans swell
Beneath the solid world.

Ye cataracts combine,
Nor let the pæan cease--
The universal concert join,
Thou dismal precipice.

But halt my feeble tongue,
My weary muse delays:
But, oh my soul, still float along
Upon the flood of praise!

It well bespeaks a man beheaded, quite
Divested of the laurel robe of life,
When every member struggles for its base,
The head; the power of order now recedes,
Unheeded efforts rise on every side,
With dull emotion rolling through the brain
Of apprehending slaves. The flocks and herds,
In sad confusion, now run to and fro,
And seem to ask, distressed, the reason why
That they are thus prostrated. Howl, ye dogs!
Ye cattle, low! ye sheep, astonish'd, bleat!
Ye bristling swine, trudge squealing through the glades,

Void of an owner to impart your food!
Sad horses, lift your heads and neigh aloud,
And caper frantic from the dismal scene;
Mow the last food upon your grass-clad lea,
And leave a solitary home behind,
In hopeless widowhood no longer gay!
The trav'ling sun of gain his journey ends
In unavailing pain; he sets with tears;
A king sequester'd sinking from his throne,
Succeeded by a train of busy friends,
Like stars which rise with smiles, to mark the flight
Of awful Phoebus to another world;
Stars after stars in fleet succession rise
Into the wide empire of fortune clear,
Regardless of the donor of their lamps,
Like heirs forgetful of parental care,
Without a grateful smile or filial tear,
Redound in rev'rence to expiring age.
But soon parental benediction flies
Like vivid meteors; in a moment gone,
As though they ne'er had been. But O! the state,
The dark suspense in which poor vassals stand,
Each mind upon the spire of chance hangs fluctuant;

The day of separation is at hand;
Imagination lifts her gloomy curtains,
Like ev'ning's mantle at the flight of day,
Thro' which the trembling pinnacle we spy,
On which we soon must stand with hopeful smiles,
Or apprehending frowns; to tumble on
The right or left forever.

Esteville fire begins to burn;
The auburn fields of harvest rise;
The torrid flames again return,
And thunders roll along the skies.


Perspiring Cancer lifts his head,
And roars terrific from on high;
Whose voice the timid creatures dread,
From which they strive with awe to fly.


The night-hawk ventures from his cell,
And starts his note in evening air;
He feels the heat his bosom swell,
Which drives away the gloom of fear.


Thou noisy insect, start thy drum;
Rise lamp-like bugs to light the train;
And bid sweet Philomela come,
And sound in front the nightly strain.


The bee begins her ceaseless hum,
And doth with sweet exertions rise;
And with delight she stores her comb,
And well her rising stock supplies.


Let sportive children well beware,
While sprightly frisking o'er the green;
And carefully avoid the snare,
Which lurks beneath the smiling scene.


The mistress bird assumes her nest,
And broods in silence on the tree,
Her note to cease, her wings at rest,
She patient waits her young to see.


The farmer hastens from the heat;
The weary plough-horse droops his head;
The cattle all at noon retreat,
And ruminate beneath the shade.


The burdened ox with dauntless rage,
Flies heedless to the liquid flood,
From which he quaffs, devoid of guage,
Regardless of his driver's rod.


Pomacious orchards now expand
Their laden branches o'er the lea;
And with their bounty fill the land,
While plenty smiles on every tree.


On fertile borders, near the stream,
Now gaze with pleasure and delight;
See loaded vines with melons teem--
'Tis paradise to human sight.


With rapture view the smiling fields,
Adorn the mountain and the plain,
Each, on the eve of Autumn, yields
A large supply of golden grain.

With tears I leave these academic bowers,
And cease to cull the scientific flowers;
With tears I hail the fair succeeding train,
And take my exit with a breast of pain.
The Fresh may trace these wonders as they smile;
The stream of science like the river Nile,
Reflecting mental beauties as it flows,
Which all the charms of College life disclose;
This sacred current as it runs refines,
Whilst Byron sings and Shakspeare's mirror shines.
First like a garden flower did I rise,
When on the college bloom I cast my eyes;
I strove to emulate each smiling gem,
Resolved to wear the classic diadem;
But when the Freshman's garden breeze was gone;
Around me spread a vast extensive lawn;
'Twas there the muse of college life begun,
Beneath the rays of erudition's sun,

Where study drew the mystic focus down,
And lit the lamp of nature with renown;
There first I heard the epic thunders roll,
And Homer's light'ning darted through my soul.
Hard was the task to trace each devious line,
Though Locke and Newton bade me soar and shine;
I sunk beneath the heat of Franklin's blaze,
And struck the notes of philosophic praise;
With timid thought I strove the test to stand,
Reclining on a cultivated land,
Which often spread beneath a college bower,
And thus invoked the intellectual shower;
E'en that fond sire on whose depilous crown,
The smile of courts and states shall shed renown;
Now far above the noise of country strife,
I frown upon the gloom of rustic life,
Where no pure stream of bright distinction flows,
No mark between the thistle and the rose;
One's like a bird encaged and bare of food,
Borne by the fowler from his native wood,
Where sprightly oft he sprung from spray to spray,
And cheer'd the forest with his artless lay,

Or fluttered o'er the purling brook at will,
Sung in the dale or soar'd above the hill.
Such are the liberal charms of college life,
Where pleasure flows without a breeze of strife;
And such would be my pain if cast away,
Without the blooms of study to display.
Beware, ye college birds, again beware,
And shun the fowler with his subtile snare;
Nor fall as one from Eden, stript of all
The life and beauty of your native hall;
Nor from the garden of your honor go,
Whence all the streams of fame and wisdom flow;
Where brooding Milton's theme purls sweet along
With Pope upon the gales of epic song;
Where you may trace a bland Demosthenes,
Whose oratoric pen ne'er fails to please;
And Plato, with immortal Cicero,
And with the eloquence of Horace glow;
There cull the dainties of a great Ainsworth,
Who sets the feast of ancient language forth;
Or glide with Ovid on his simple stream,
And catch the heat from Virgil's rural beam;
Through Addison you trace creation's fire,
And all the rapid wheels of time admire;

Or pry with Paley's theologic rays,
And hail the hand of wisdom as you gaze;
Up Murray's pleasant hill you strive to climb,
To gain a golden summit all sublime,
And plod through conic sections all severe,
Which to procure is pleasure true and dear.
The students' pensive mind is often stung,
Whilst blundering through the Greek and Latin tongue;
Parsing in grammars which may suit the whole,
And will the dialect of each control.
Now let us take a retrospective view,
And whilst we pause, observe a branch or two.
Geography and Botany unfold
Their famous charms like precious seeds of gold;
Zoology doth all her groups descry,
And with Astronomy we soar on high;
But pen and ink and paper all would fail,
To write one third of this capacious tale.
Geography presents her flowery train,
Describes the mountain and surveys the plain,
Measures the sounding rivers as they grow,
Unto the trackless deeps to which they flow:
She measures well her agriculture's stores,

Which meet her commerce on the golden shore,
Includes the different seasons of the year,
And changes which pervade the atmosphere,
Treats of the dread phenomena which rise
In different shapes on earth, or issue from the skies;
She points in truth to Lapland's frozen clime,
And nicely measures all the steps of time;
Unfolds the vast equator's burning line,
Where all the stores of heat dissolve and shine;
Describes the earth as unperceived she rolls,
Her well-poised axis placed upon the poles.
Botany, whose charms her florists well display,
Whose lavish odours swell the pomp of May,
Whose curling wreaths the steady box adorn,
And fill with fragrance all the breeze of morn.
Through various means her plants are oft applied,
Improved by art, and well by nature tried;
Thro' her, the stores of herbage are unroll'd,
All which compose the vegetable world;
Even the sensitives, which feel and shrink,
From slightest touches, though they cannot think,
Not yet rejoice, void of the power to fear,

Or sense to smell, to see, to taste, or hear.
Zoology, with her delightful strain,
Doth well the different animals explain;
From multipedes to emmets in the dust,
And all the groveling reptiles of disgust;
She well descries the filthy beetle blind,
With insects high and low of every kind;
She with her microscope surveys the mite,
Which ne'er could be beheld by naked sight;
Thence she descends into the boundless deep,
Where dolphins play and monsters slowly creep;
Explores the foaming main from shore to shore,
And hears with awe the dshing sea bull roar;
Traces enormous whales exploding high
Their floods of briny water to the sky;
Desribes the quadrupeds of ever shape,
The bear, the camel, elephant and ape,
And artful monkey, which but lack to talk,
And like the human kind uprightly walk.
Astronomy, with her aerial powers,
Lifts us above this dreary globe of ours;
Throughout the realms of ether's vast expanse,
Her burning wings our towering minds advance;
Measures her tropic well from line to line,

And marks her rolling planets as they shine;
Describes the magnitude of every star,
And thence pursues her comets as they roll afar.
But nature never yet was half explored,
Though by philosopher and bard adored;
Astronomer and naturalist expire,
And languish that they could ascend no higher;
Expositors of words in every tongue,
Writers of prose and scribblers of song,
Would fail with all their mathematic powers,
And vainly study out their fleeting hours.
Sir Walter Raleigh, Pen and Roberson,
With Morse and Snowden, who are dead and gone,
They all were, though mused their lives away,
And left ten thousand wonders to display.
And though the fiery chemists probe the mine
The subterraneous bodies to define;
Though melting flames the force of matter try,
Rocks mix'd with brass and gold to pieces fly;
And those who follow the electric muse,
Amidst the wilds of vast creation loose
Themselves like pebbles in the swelling main,
And strive for naught these wanders to explain;

Galvin himself, the monarch of the whole,
Would blush his empty parchments to unroll.
These different branches to one ocean go,
Where all the streams of life together flow,
Where perfect wisdom swells the tide of joy,
A tide which must eternity employ;
A boundless sea of love without a shore,
Whose pleasure ebbs and flows forever more;
Volume Divine! O thou the sacred dew,
Thy fadeless fields see elders passing through,
Thy constant basis must support the whole,
The cabinet and alcove of the soul;
It matters not through what we may have pass'd,
To thee for sure support we fly at last;
Encyclopedias we may wander o'er,
And study every scientific lore,
Ancient and modern authors we may read,
The soul must starve or on thy pastures feed.
These bibliothic charms would surely fall,
And life grow dim within this college wall,
The wheels of study in the mind would tire,
If not supported by thy constant fire;
Greatest of all the precepts ever taught
Maps and vocabularies dearly bought,
Burns with his harp, Scott, Cambell, and their flowers,

Will shrink without the everlasting showers;
Theology, thou sweetest science yet,
Beneath whose boughs the silent classics sit,
And thus imbibe the sacred rays divine,
Which make the mitred faculty to shine;
O for a gleam of Buck, immortal muse,
With elder Scott and Henry to peruse;
These lines which did a secret bliss inspire,
And set the heads, the hearts, the tongues, on fire.
Such is the useful graduate indeed,
Not merely at the bar in law to plead,
Nor a physician best to heal the flesh,
But all the mystic power of soul and flesh;
On such a senior let archangels smile,
And all the students imitate his style,
Who bears with joy the mission all divine,
The beams of sanctitude, a Paul benign;
Whose sacred call is to evangelise,
A gospel prince, a legate of the skies,
Whose bright diploma is a deed from heaven,
The palm of love, the wreath of sins forgiven.