LIFE IN NATURE.

Life grows not more nor less; it is but force And only changes; Expended here, it takes another course, And ever ranges Throughout this circling universe of ours, Now quickening man, now in his grave-grown flowers.

Yet dwells life not alone in man and beast And budding flowers. It lurks in all things, from the very least Gleam in dark bowers Of the great sun, through stones, and sea, and air, Up to ourselves, in Nature everywhere.

Life differs from the soul. This is beyond The realms of science; God and mankind it joins in closest bond, And bids defiance To Death and Change. By faith alone confessed, It dwells within our bodies as a guest.

The germ of life sleeps in the aged hills And stately rivets, And wakes into the life our hearts that thrills And in leaves quivers. The universe is one great reservoir From which man draws of thinking life his store.

And, therefore, is it that the weary brain, That seeks communion With Nature in her haunts, finds strength again In that close union: She is our mother and the mind distressed Drinks a new draught of life at her loved breast.