Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/253

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241

Earth echo'd back the shout of grateful love,
From hill and valley, cavern, stream and grove;
Man fill'd with praise in silent rapture stood,
God bow'd to view his work, and God pronounc'd it good.







TO A FRIEND.


SAY, hast thou seen a trembling plant,
    Of feeble bloom, and lowly birth,
Which every passing blast might bend,
    In sadness to its mother earth;

'Till some kind hand would pierce the shade,
    That hid it from the cheering sky?
Thine is that gentle culturing hand:
    The weak and trembling plant am I.

And while that plant of life shall taste,
    And press this low and earthly spot,
The hand that rear'd it from the waste,
    Shall never, never, be forgot!