Garden Thoughts — Humboldt.
66 'Beginning with the depths of space and the regions of remotest nebulæ we will gradually descend through the starry zone to which our solar system belongs to our own terrestrial spheroid, circled by air and ocean, there to direct our attention to its form, temperature, and magnetic tension, and to consider the fulness of organic life unfolding itself upon its surface beneath the vivifying influence of light."-Cosmos.
SAGE of the all-pervading glance, thy flight
Upward, to highest heav'n, then earthward, down,
Is as the aged eagle's, who, when frown
The thunder-clouds o'er Dawalghiri's height,
Bathes his bold plumage in the flashing light;
While, to the gazers but a speck of brown,
He sails high o'er the loftiest peaks that crown
The globe stretch'd map-like out beneath his sight:
Thence, scans the airy ocean, in whose deeps
The orb below him floats, to its far bound:
Then, all undizzied and majestic, sweeps
In ever-lowering circles, easy round,
Until he folds his wings, without a shock,
And lights in safety on the barren rock.
Garden Thoughts- Reflection on the Two Foregoing Sonnets.
“Ατε γὰρ τῆς φυσέως ἁπασῆς συγγενοῦς οὔσης, καὶ μεμαθήκυιας τῆς ψυχῆς ἅπαντα οὔδεν κωλύει ἓν μονὸν ἀναμνήσθεντα, ὅ δὴ μάθησιν καλουσιν ἄνθρωποι, τάλλα πάντα αὔτον ἀνευρεῖν, εἀν τὶς ἄνδρειος ᾖ καὶ ἀποκάμνη Sýrwv.-PLATO, Meno.
UPWARD or downward, whencesoe'er we start,
From thought or matter, from the dim star-dust,
Or from this planet's inorganic crust,
The mite unveil'd by microscopic art,
Or the emotions of the human heart,
Induction or analysis our trust,
To this conclusion come at last we must:
The universe one whole; man but a part:
Complex and various though its wonders be;
Antagonist its struggles; death with youth;
Sameness with change; with ceaseless motion rest:
So uniform is its simplicity,
That though the riddle was not read nor guess'd,
The Orphic fragment hints perchance the truth.†
† See note C, at the end.
Garden Thoughts - Man's Ministers.
"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of."-GEORGE HERBERT.
SELF-SATISFIED, complacent, deaf, blind, mute,
Man marcheth selfish on from birth to death,
Unconscious how each atom minist'reth
Unto his wants or pleasures. Lo! the brute
Feeds him, or clothes: the medicinal root
Offers him health: air gives him vital breath;
Mellows his light; or, trembling, whispereth
The melodies of fountain, or of flute:
His thirst is quench'd by streams, or luscious fruit:
Sun, moon, and stars, his servants are: his steed
Old Ocean ever-varying seasons suit
His crops with fire and frost alternating :
E'en insects toil for his delight or need :
No creature but doth some time own him king.
Garden Thoughts-Life in Death.
"The dust we tread upon was once alive."-BYRON.
"The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying place that is her womb."
Romeo and Juliet.
"THE dust we tread upon was once alive!"
Ay, truer than the Poet dream'd, his verse.
Earth's surface is mortality's full hearse,
As surely as the living's busy hive;
For by death chiefly doth it grow and thrive,
A sepulchre and cradle, grave and nurse;
The spectre-bride, for better or for worse!
Whatever heights we climb, where'er we dive,
To oozy bottom, or sharp mountain face,
All once was life: in chalk and flinty cast
Oft are the forms of million ages past
Saved and enshrin'd, old Nature's cabinet;
And e'en in "primal" granite we but trace
A fire-fused mass of being earlier yet. *
"God never form'd a soul, Without its own peculiar mate to meet
Its wandering half."-Maria del Occidente.
"Durior at scopulis mea Coelia, marmore, ferro,
Robore, rupe, antro, cornu, adamante, gelu."
Angerianus Erotopagnion.
ALL things do mate. Go, watch the loneliest cloud
That ever sail'd across the summer sky,
And thou shalt mark it to its fellow fly.
There's not a fire mid all the starry crowd,
But fancy finds its mate-flame; streams endow'd
By streams, commingle; love-sick flowers do lie
Each folded in the other's arms, or sigh
Until that busy go-between hath vow'd,
The procuress bee, their intercourse to crown;
In pairs the sea-birds o'er the billows sweep ;—
The silver moon hath wedded sable night;-
Rusheth each day the giant sun to drown
His hot love in the chambers of the deep
I only ne'er shall clasp my heart's delight.
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