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Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of heaven on all his ways;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
fo-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labour, to reform
Yon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums
That lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease:
Meanwhile, as Nature wills, night bids us rest,'

To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned: 'My author and disposer, what thou bidst Unargued I obey: so God ordains;

God is thy law, thou mine to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;

All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.
But wherefore all night long shine these? for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?'
To whom our general ancestor replied:
'Daughter of God and Man, accomplished Eve,
These have their course to finish round the earth
By morrow evening, and from land to land
In order, though to nations yet unborn,
Ministering light prepared, they set and rise;
Lest total darkness should by night regain
Her old possession, and extinguish life
In nature and all things, which these soft fires
Not only enlighten, but with kindly heat
Of various influence, foment and warm,
Temper or nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On earth, made hereby apter to receive
Perfection from the sun's more potent ray.
These, then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain; nor think, though men were

none,

That heaven would want spectators, God want praise.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other's note,
Singing their great Creator! Oft in bands,
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonic numbers joined, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven.'
Thus talking, hand in hand alone they passed
On to their blissful bower; it was a place
Chosen by the sovereign Planter, when he framed
All things to Man's delightful use; the roof
Of thickest covert was inwoven shade,
Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,
Fenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower;
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine,

Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought

Mosaic; underfoot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay

Broidered the ground, more coloured than with

stone

Of costliest emblem: other creatures here,
Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none;
Such was their awe of Man.

Thus, at their shady lodge arrived, both stood,
Both turned, and under open sky adored
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven,
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendant globe,
And starry pole: 'Thou also mad'st the night,
Maker Omnipotent, and thou the day,
Which we in our appointed work employed
Have finished, happy in our mutual help
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss,
Ordained by thee, and this delicious place,
For us too large, where thy abundance wants
Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground.
But thou hast promised from us two a race
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.'
EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

He added not; for Adam at the news
Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discovered soon the place of her retire:

'O unexpected stroke; worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil? these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hoped to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,

That never will in other climate grow, My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?'
Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild:
Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign
What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine:
Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes
Thy husband; him to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.'
Adam, by this from the cold sudden damp
Recovering, and his scattered spirits returned,
To Michael thus his humble words addressed:
'Celestial, whether among the thrones, or named
Of them the highest, for such of shape may seem
Prince above princes, gently hast thou told
Thy message, which might else in telling wound,
And in performing end us; what besides
Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair,
Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring;
Departure from this happy place, our sweet
Recess, and only consolation left
Familiar to our eyes; all places else
Inhospitable appear and desolate,

Nor knowing us, nor known: and if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries;
But prayer against his absolute decree
No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth;
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
This most afflicts me, that, departing hence,
As from his face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed countenance; here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he vouchsafed
Presence divine, and to my sons relate,
On this mount he appeared; under this tree
Stood visible; among these pines his voice

I heard; here with him at this fountain talked;

So many grateful altars I would rear

Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory,
Or monument to ages, and thereon

Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footstep trace?
For though I fled him angay, yet, recalled
To life prolonged and promised race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.'

Now, too nigh

The Archangel stood, and from the other hill
To their fixed station, all in bright array,
The cherubim descended; on the ground,
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist
Risen from a river o'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandished sword of God before them blazed
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan air adust,
Began to parch that temperate clime: whereat,
In either hand the hastening Angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

HUGH SUTHERLAND'S PANSIES.

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

"The lily minds me of a maiden brow," Hugh Sutherland would say: "the marigold Is full and sunny like her yellow hair,

The full-blown rose her lips with sweetness tipt:
But if you seek a likeness to her eye-

Go to the pansies, friend, and find it there!"
"Ay, leeze me on the pansies!" Hugh would say—
Hugh Sutherland, the weaver he who dwelt
Here in the white-wash'd cot you fancy so-
Who knew the learned names of all the flowers,
And recognized the lily, tho' its head
Rose in a ditch of dull Latinity!

Pansies? You praise the ones that grow to-day Here in the garden: had you seen the place When Sutherland was living! Here they grew, From blue to deeper blue, in midst of each A golden dazzle like a glimmering star, Each broader, bigger, than a silver crown; While here the weaver sat, his labor done, Watching his azure pets and rearing them, Until they seem'd to know his step and touch, And stir beneath his smile like living things! The very sunshine loved them, and would lie Here happy, coming early, lingering late, Because they were so fair.

Hugh Sutherland Was country-bred-I knew him from the time When on a bed of pain he lost a limb.

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And rose at last, a lame and sickly lad,
Apprenticed to the loom-a peevish lad,
Mooning among the shadows by himself.
Among these shadows, with the privilege
Of one who loved his flock, I sought him out,
And gently as I could I won his heart;
And then, tho' he was young and I was old,
We soon grew friends. He told his griefs to me,
His joys, his troubles, and I help'd him on;
Yet sought in vain to drive away the cloud
Deep pain had left upon his sickly cheek,
And lure him from the shades that deepen'd it.
Then Heaven took the task upon itself,
And sent an angel down among the flowers!
Almost before I knew the work was done,
I found him settled in this but and ben,
Where, with an eye that brighten'd, he had found
The sunshine loved his garden, and begun
To rear his pansies.

Sutherland was poor, Rude, and untutor'd; peevish, too, when first The angel in his garden found him out; But pansy-growing made his heart within Blow fresh and fragrant. When he came to share This cottage with a brother of the craft, Only some poor and sickly blossoms bloom'd, Vagrant, though fair, among the garden plots; And idly, carelessly, he water'd these,

Spread them and train'd them, till they grew and grew

In size and beauty, and the angel thrust

Its bright arms upward thro' the bright'ning sod,
And clung around the sickly gardener's heart.
Then Sutherland grew calmer, and the cloud
Was fading from his face. Well, by and by,
The country people saw and praised the flowers,
And what at first had been an idle joy
Became a sober, serious work for fame.
Next, being won to send a bunch for show,
He won a prize-a sixth or seventh rate,
And slowly gath'ring courage, rested not
Till he had won the highest prize of all.
Here in the sunshine and the shade he toil'd
Early and late in joy, and, by and by,
Rose high in fame; for not a botanist,
A lover of the flowers, poor man or rich,
Came to the village, but the people said,
"Go down the lane to Weaver Sutherland's,
And see his pansies!"

Thus the summers pass'd, And Sutherland grew gentler, happier; The angel God had sent him clung to him: There grew a rapturous sadness in his tone When he was gladdest, like the dewiness That moistens pansies when they bloom the best; And in his face there dawn'd a gentle light, Like that which softly clings about a flow'r, And makes you love it. Yet his heart was glad,

More for the pansies' sakes than for his own:
His eye was like a father's, moist and bright,
When they were praised; and, as I said, they seem'd
To make themselves as beauteous as they could,
Smiling to please him. Blessings on the flowers!
They were his children! Father never loved
His little darlings more, or for their sakes
Fretted so dumbly! Father never bent
More tenderly above his little ones,

In the still watches of the night, when sleep
Breathes balm upon their eyelids! Night and day
Poor Hugh was careful for the gentle things
Whose presence brought a sunshine to the place
Where sickness dwe.t: this one was weak and small,
And needed watching like a sickly child;
This one so beauteous that it shamed its mates
And made him angry with its beauteousness.
"I cannot rest!" cried Hughie with a smile,
"I scarcely snatch a moment to myself-
They plague me so!" Part fun, part earnest, this:
He loved the pansies better than he knew.
Ev'n in the shadow of his weaving room
They haunted him and brighten'd on his soul:
Daily while busy working at the loom
The humming-humming seem'd a melody
To which the pansies sweetly grew and grew-
A leaf unrolling soft to every note,

A change of colours with the change of sound;
And walking to the door to rest himself,
Still with the humming-humming in his ears,
He saw the flowers and heard a melody
They made in growing. Pleasure such as this,
So exquisite, so lonely, might have pass'd
Into the shadowy restlessness of yore;
But wholesome human contact saved him here,
And kept him fresh and meek. The people came
To stir him with their praise, and he would show
The medals and the prizes he had got-
As proud and happy as a child who gains
A prize in school.

The angel still remain'd In winter, when the garden-plots were bare, And deep winds piloted the shriven snow: He saw its gleaming in the cottage fire, While, with a book of botany on his knee, He sat and hunger'd for the breath of spring. The angel of the flowers was with him still! Here beds of roses sweeten'd all the page; Here lilies whiter than the fallen snow Crept gleaming softly from the printed lines; Here dewy violets sparkled till the book Dazzled his eyes with rays of misty buel; And here, amid a page of Latin names, All the sweet Scottish flowers together grew With fragrance of the summer.

Hugh and I Were still fast friends, and stiil I help'd him on; And often in the pleasant summer-time,

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