THE WHEAT-SHEAF. Education. BY CHARLES MACKAY. I HAVE a wondrous house to build, With all the jewels of the mine. So small and modest, yet so great! With use, with ornament, with state? My God hath given the stone and clay: And make my labour my delight. 14 EDUCATION. No fairy bower this house must be, Symmetrical in all its parts- In every cranny, nook and pane. I'll build it so, that if the blast Around it whistle loud and long, I'll build it so that travellers by For its commodiousness and grace: Thus noble in its outward form, Within I'll build it clear and white,Not cheerless cold, but happy warm, And ever open to the light: No tortuous passage or stair, No chamber foul, or dungeon lair, No gloomy attic shall there be, But wide apartments ordered fair, With three compartments furnished well, EDUCATION. The first, a room wherein to deal A room where he may work or play, In its pure texture day by day. The second, for his wisdom sought, Where, with his chosen book or friend, He may employ his active thought To virtuous and exalted end. A chamber lofty and serene, Smooth shaven sward, and arching bowers, Where lore, or talk, or song between, The third, an oratory dim, But beautiful, where he may raise, Of Love, of Gratitude, of Praise : And learn how little he may be, Such is the house that I must build- For an Immortal's earthly home. Oh, task most difficult and rare! Oh, simple, but most arduous plan! To raise a dwelling-place so fair, The sanctuary of a man! 15 Che Barmony of Nature. THERE is joy among the ice-bergs, when ends the polar night, And their mighty crystals flash, in the newly wakened light: There is joy in shouting Egypt, when through her valleys wide, Pours the fountain of her harvests, its renovated tide. Through each zone that belts the earth, Nature sings a gladsome song, In numbers sweetly simple, or magnificently strong. By the well spring in the desert, beneath the spreading Palm, In meadows of the wilderness, where proudly in the air, The Elk his antlers tosseth, and the Bison makes his lair; From heights where the strong Eagle, sways his pinions on the cloud, And valleys where the vine's bright leaves the blushing clusters shroud : From the teeming lap of ocean where rest the sunny isles, spoils ; With trumpet-tongued sublimity, or low and silver voice, Ye are but vassal servitors, that minister to man! 'Tis true in fierce rebellion, there are moments when ye rise, And crush the weak defences, he hath labored to devise: |