THE WORKS OF MAN AND OF NATURE.

Man's works grow stale to man: the years destroy

The charm they once possessed; the city tires;

The terraces, the domes, the dazzling spires

Are in the main but an attractive toy —

They please the man not as they pleased the boy;

And he returns to Nature, and requires

To warm his soul at her old altar fires,

To drink from her perpetual fount of joy.

It is that man and all the works of man

Prepare to pass away; he may depend

On naught but what he found her stores among;

But she, she changes not, nor ever can;

He knows she will be faithful to the end,

For ever beautiful, for ever young.