THE prophet's sons, in times of old,
Though to appearance poor,
Were rich, without possessing gold,
And honoured, though obscure.
In peace their daily bread they eat,
By honest labour earned;
While daily, at Elisha's feet,
They truth and wisdom learned.
The prophet's presence cheered their toil,
They watched the words he spoke,
Whether they turned the furrowed soil,
Or felled the spreading oak.
Once, as they listened to his theme,
Their conference was stopped;
For one beneath the yielding stream
A borrowed axe had dropped.
"Alas! it was not mine," he said;
"How shall I make it good?"
Elisha heard, and when he prayed,
The iron swam like wood.
If God in such a small affair
A miracle performs,
It shows His condescending care
Of poor unworthy worms.
Though kings and nations in His view
Are but as motes and dust,
His eyes and ear are fixed on you,
Who in His mercy trust.
Not one concern of ours is small,
If we belong to Him;
To teach us this, the Lord of all
Once made the iron swim.
INSTINCT OF BIRDS, BEES, AND ANTS.
WHO taught the bird to build her nest
Of softest wool, and hay, and moss?
Who taught her how to weave it best,
And lay the tiny twigs across?
Who taught the busy bee to fly
Among the sweetest herbs and flowers?
And lay her store of honey by,
Providing food for winter's hours?
Who taught the little ant the way
Her narrow hole so well to bore? And through the pleasant summer's day To gather up her winter's store?
"Twas God who taught them all the way, And gave these little creatures skill;
And He will teach us, if we pray,
To know and do His holy will.
Lo, the lilies of the field!
How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson given
By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy.
Christian, fly from doubt and sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow!
Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we, poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily.
Christian, fly from doubt and sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow!
One there lives whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;
One there lives who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers, lest they fall;
Pass we blithely, then, the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow!
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with Him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
COME, honey-bee, with thy busy hum,
To the fragrant tufts of the wild thyme come,
And sip the sweet dew from the cowslip's head,
From the lily's bell and the violet's bed.
Come, honey-bee,
There is spread for thee
A rich repast in wood and field;
And a thousand flowers
Within our bowers
To thee their nectared essence yield.
Come, honey-bee, to our woodlands come,
There's a lesson for us in thy busy hum;
Thou hast treasure in store in the hawthorn's wreath,
In the golden broom and the purple heath;
And flowers less fair,
Like pleasant friends, drop balm for thee;
And thou winnest spoil
By thy daily toil,
Thou patient, and thrifty, and diligent bee.
We may learn from the bee the wise man's lore,-
"The hand of the diligent gathereth store."
He plies in his calling from morn till night,
Nor tires of his labour, nor flags in his flight:
From numberless blossoms, of every hue,
He gathers the nectar and sips the dew.
Then homeward he speeds,
O'er the fragrant meads,
And he hums as he goes his thankful lay.
Let our thanks, too, arise
For our daily supplies,
As homeward and heavenward we haste on our way.
WITH equal art externally disguised,
But of internal structure passing far
The feathered concaves of the other tribes,
The goldfinch weaves, with willow down inlaid,
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