Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851. Various

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      Earth animated heaves. The flowery leaf

      Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure,

      Within its winding citadel, the stone

      Holds multitudes. But chief the forest boughs,

      That dance unnumber'd to the playful breeze,

      The downy orchard, and the melting pulp

      Of mellow fruit, the nameless nations feed

      Of evanescent insects. Where the pool

      Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible

      Amid the floating verdure millions stray.

      Each liquid, too, whether it pierces, soothes,

      Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste,

      With various forms abounds. Nor is the stream

      Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air,

      Though one transparent vacancy it seems,

      Void of their unseen people. These, conceal'd

      By the kind art of forming Heaven, escape

      The grosser eye of man: for, if the worlds

      In worlds inclos'd should on his senses burst,

      From cates ambrosial, and the nectar'd bowl,

      He would abhorrent turn; and in dead night.

      When silence sleeps o'er all, be stunn'd with noise.

      Let no presuming impious railer tax

      Creative Wisdom, as if aught was form'd

      In vain, or not for admirable ends.

      Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce

      His works unwise, of which the smallest part

      Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?

      As if upon a full-proportion'd dome,

      On swelling columns heav'd, the pride of art!

      A critic fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads

      An inch around, with blind presumption bold,

      Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.

      And lives the man whose universal eye

      Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things,

      Mark'd their dependence so, and firm accord,

      As with unfaltering accent to conclude

      That this availeth naught? Has any seen

      The mighty chain of beings, lessening down

      From Infinite Perfection to the brink

      Of dreary nothing, desolate abyss!

      From which astonish'd thought, recoiling, turns?

      Till then, alone let zealous praise ascend,

      And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power,

      Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds,

      As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

      Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,

      Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd,

      The quivering nations sport; till, tempest-wing'd,

      Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day

      Even so, luxurious men, unheeding pass,

      An idle summer-life in fortune's shine,

      A season's glitter! thus they flutter on

      From toy to toy, from vanity to vice;

      Till, blown away by death, oblivion comes

      Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

      Now swarms the village o'er the jovial mead

      The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil,

      Healthful and strong; full as the summer rose

      Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid,

      Half-naked, swelling on the sight, and all