The Porphyry Vase.

P. John.

"And here, between the armies,

Let's drink together friendly and embrace;

That all their eyes may bear those tokens home

Of our restored love and amity."

"The word of peace is render'd. Hark! how they shout."

King Henry IV., Part 2.

I DREAMT a dream-'Twas night-methought I stood
Within the Warden's Hall, while flambeaux round
Cast ruddy radiance on the walls and ground:
A porphyry vase, grass-green, but veined with blood,
Rose from the pavement in the full light's flood;
Wine from it spouted high with sparkling bound,
And fell back pattering with a rain-like sound;
The kings of Europe, linked in brotherhood,
Circled the spot, robed, jewelled, scepter'd, crown'd.
Each in the vase his golden goblet drown'd,
Then rais'd it beaded to the brim :-Rang out
Trump, kettle-drum, and cannon; and this shout
Rose from the crowd, black-hooded, scarlet-gown'd:
"Good-will to men;
and Peace all earth through-

out."

[This is the vase alluded to in the note to the third Sonnet. I have taken the poetical licence of picturing an event which, of course, never really happened-the allied sovereigns pledging peace.]

The Garden.

"Nothing is constant, but in constant change,
What's done is still undone, and when undone,
Into some other fashion doth it range;

Thus goes this floating world beneath the sun."
DRUMMOND.

"Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulchrum."
LUCRETIUS.

"Look at the earth, the streams, the clouds, the sky,
Lo! all is interchange and harmony."-ELLIOTT.
"Utque novis fragilis signatur cera figuris,

Nec manet ut fuerat, nec formas servat easdem,

Nec tamen ipsa eadem est: animam sic semper eandem
Esse, sed in varias doceo migrare figuras."-Ovid.

GARDEN! mid thee in my reflective hours
Did fancy follow oft her vagrant mood;

And chief, I do remember I pursued

This quaint thought once among thy lawns and flowers.

'Twas mid-day in mid June, and sultry showers

Fell fast on the dry sward: then did I trace

One essence varied through all Nature's face.
Dews rise from earth to clouds: they fall in dowers
Of beauty on her herbage; flocks and herds
Live on this pasturage-insects and birds:

They and their produce nourish Man; and Man,
Who walks this earth like a Divinity,

Becomes the soil from which the round began-
Strange union, interchange, and mystery!

Reflection on the foregoing.

"To preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities is as great a miracle as to create him. To preserve him from rushing to nothing, and at first to draw him up from nothing, were equally the issues of an Almighty Power."-TAYLOR'S Holy Living and Dying.

"Those strange and mystical transmigrations that I have observed in silkworms, turned my philosophy into divinity. There is in their works of nature which seem to puzzle reason, something divine; and hath more in it than the eye of a common spectator doth discover."-SIR T. BROWN'S Relig. Med.

"Non v'accorgete voi, che noi siam vermi,
Nati a formar l'angelica farfalla?"-DANTE.

IDLE and earthly thought! yet not all vain,
If, while I mark how all things suffer change,
And at their dissolution do but range

Into some varied form, I learn to train

'Upward my speculation, till I gain
Knowledge of His frugality, more strange
Perchance than power to make and first arrange.
Things once create, themselves produce again!
Wonderful dispensation! strong to turn

Bold scoffer, timid sceptic; symbolling

That souls not perish though the body die;

Hence let the Saducee-at-heart discern

In death the chrysalis state, whence Man shall spring Buoyant on wings of immortality.

Garden Thoughts-Insect Life.

"Gradual from these what numerous kinds descend,
Evading even the microscopic eye.

Full nature swarms with life; one wondrous mass
Of animals or atoms organized."-THOMSON's Seasons.

GOD dwells not only in the vast and grand, Thunder and storms, and in the pathless sea, The high sun riding in its majesty,

And stars as countless as the sea-shore sand;
But in the infinitely small His hand

Is ever present: His the honey bee
Probing the summer cowslip: His the free
Bold commonwealth of ants, a workman band:
His the lens-open'd world of insect life;
And doubtless tinier myriad forms that fill
Water and air; each with distinctive frame,
And organs all appropriate; fit for strife,
Labour, enjoyment.* All to being came,
And have their ends from one Almighty Will.

* See note A, at the end.

Garden Thoughts - Swedenborg.

"The man whose universal eye

Hath swept at once the unbounded scheme of things.'
THOMSON'S Seasons.

How just his view, the mystic Swede who saw
Nature in all her forms herself repeat;

And, dragging from its innermost retreat
Each faint resemblance, traced harmonious law
Run, like a single thread without a flaw,
Throughout creation; uniform, complete;
And so clomb, strand by strand, unto the seat
Of perfect Godhead, through all things that are.
All the material was to him unfurl'd,

The flag, type, symbol, of the viewless world.

He read in stones, plants, man, sun, moon, stars, climes,

The same face many-mask'd; Nature's own rhymes; Close linking by form, series, degree,

The soul to Heav'n, in sweet philosophy.