There is a God in heaven, whose purpose none may tell; There is a God in heaven, who doeth all things well: And thus an infant nation was cradled on the deep, While hosts of holy angels were set to guard its sleep; No seer, no priest, or prophet, read its horoscope at birth, No bard in solemn saga sung its destiny to earth, But slowly,--slowly,--slowly as the acorn from the sod, It grew in strength and grandeur, and spread its arms abroad; The eyes of distant nations turned towards that goodly tree, And they saw how fair and pleasant were the fruits of Liberty! Like earth’s convulsive motion before the earthquake’s shock, Like the foaming of the ocean around old Plymouth Rock, So the deathless love of Freedom--the majesty of Right-- In all kindred, and all nations, is rising in its might; And words of solemn warning come from the honored dead-- “Woe, woe to the oppressor if righteous blood be shed! Rush not blindly on the future! heed the lessons of the past! For the feeble and the faithful are the conquerors at last.” KEPLER’S VISION. “How grand the spectacle of a mind thus restless--thirsting with unquenchable appetite after beauty and harmony! Never was there a finer example of a spirit too vast to be satiated with the few truths around it, or one that more emphatically foreboded a necessary immortality.”--_Prof. R. P. Nichol._ Upon the clear, bright, northern sky, Aurora’s rainbow arches gleamed, While, from their radiant source on high, The countless host of evening beamed; Each moving in its path of light-- Those paths by Science then untrod-- The silent guardians of the night, The watchers by the throne of God. Far up above the gloomy wood,-- The wavy, murmuring wood of pine,-- Upon the mountain side, there stood A worshipper at Nature’s shrine. His spirit, like a breathing lyre, At each celestial touch awoke, And burning with a sacred fire, His voice the solemn silence broke. “O, glittering host! O, golden line! I would I had an angel’s ken, Your deepest secrets to divine, And read your mysteries to men. The glorious truth is in my soul, The solemn witness in my heart-- Although ye move as one great whole, Each bears his own appointed part.” * * * * * He slept. No! in a blissful trance The feebler powers of Nature lay, While upward, o’er the vast expanse, His eager spirit swept away,-- Away into those fields of light, By human footsteps unexplored; Order and beauty met his sight-- He saw, he wondered, and adored!