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 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, Thus goes this floating world beneath the sun." "Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulchrum." "Look at the earth, the streams, the clouds, the sky, Nec manet ut fuerat, nec formas servat easdem, Nec tamen ipsa eadem est: animam sic semper eandem GARDEN! mid thee in my reflective hours 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. They and their produce nourish Man; and Man, Becomes the soil from which the round began- 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, IDLE and earthly thought! yet not all vain, Into some varied form, I learn to train 'Upward my speculation, till I gain 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, Full nature swarms with life; one wondrous mass 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; Is ever present: His the honey bee * See note A, at the end. Garden Thoughts - Swedenborg. "The man whose universal eye Hath swept at once the unbounded scheme of things.' How just his view, the mystic Swede who saw And, dragging from its innermost retreat 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. |