ON
NG A
ET OF
ES.
Thanks for thy
Of ocean flowers,
Born where the golden
Of the slant sunshine
Down the green, tremulous
Of water, to the cool, still coral bowers,
Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers,
God's gardens of the
His patient angels keep;
Gladdening the dim, strange
With fairest forms and hues, and
Forever teaching
The lesson which the many-colored skies,
The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies,
The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that
The tropic sunshine from its golden wings,
The brightness of the human countenance,
Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance,
Forevermore repeat,
In varied tones and sweet,
That beauty, in and of itself, is good.
O kind and generous friend, o'er
The sunset hues of Time are cast,
Painting, upon the
And scattered clouds of noonday
The promise of a fairer morrow,
An earnest of the better life to come;
The binding of the spirit broken,
The warning to the erring spoken,
The comfort of the sad,
The eye to see, the hand to
Of common things the beautiful,
The absent heart made
By simple gift or graceful
Of love it needs as daily food,
All own one Source, and all are
Hence, tracking sunny cove and reach,
Where spent waves glimmer up the beach,
And toss their gifts of weed and
From foamy curve and combing swell,
No unbefitting task was
To weave these flowers so soft and
In unison with His
Who loveth beauty everywhere;
And makes in every zone and clime,
In ocean and in upper air,
All things beautiful in their time.
For not alone in tones of awe and
He speaks to Inan;
The cloudy horror of the
His rainbows span;
And where the
Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in
The crane-flock leaves, no trace of passage there,
He gives the weary
The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon hours,
And on its branches
Calls out the acacia's flowers;
And where the dark shaft pierces
Beneath the mountain roots,
Seen by the miner's lamp alone,
The star-like crystal shoots;
So, where, the winds and waves below,
The coral-branched gardens grow,
His climbing weeds and mosses show,
Like foliage, on each stony bough,
Of varied hues more strangely
Than forest leaves in autumn's day;--Thus evermore,
On sky, and wave, and shore,
An all-pervading beauty seems to
God's love and power are one; and they,
Who, like the thunder of a sultry day,
Smite to restore,
And they, who, like the gentle wind,
The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and
Their perfume on the air,
Alike may serve Him, each, with their own gift,
Making their lives a prayer!
