The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, July 1836)Various
General
The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 5, July 1836)
Various
College students' writings, American -- Connecticut -- New Haven -- Periodicals; Yale University -- Periodicals
This exhibition of nature is free to all. It is unfolded with equal
beauty and variety to the humble peasant, as he treads homeward his
weary way from the labors of the field, and the man of science and
taste who can enjoy it at his leisure. For each the same glorious sun
rises and sets, the same landscape of hill and valley and river is
spread out, the same rich colors glow, the same fragrance perfumes the
air.--In its full and ever changing variety, there is something to
suit the disposition and character of every one. The sons of sorrow,
whose only inheritance is melancholy and gloom, and in whose minds the
bright things of earth meet no response, may find in the still sadness
of the lonely vale, or in the steeps of the giant hill, a spirit in
unison with their own. And they, over whose fair visions the cloud of
disappointment has never flung its shade, whose souls are radiant with
the hope and gladness of life’s young morn, may find their companions
too in the joyous revels of nature. The gentle whisperings of the
summer breeze, the gay sparkle and the rushing fall of the cascade,
the mellow richness of the grove, the gorgeous drapery of sunset, with
these, with every thing that breathes the spirit of joy, they can claim
a kindred feeling.
The scene is ever before us in its unchanging beauty. It is not like
the bright shadows that charm us on in boyhood and youth, only to
vanish for ever from the sober realities of manhood. The breeze,
that cooled the brow of the child in his early sports, plays with the
same freshness around the wrinkles of age--the meadows wear as rich a
green--the flowers bloom with equal loveliness--and nature, still fair
and attractive, as when the morning stars first sang together, feels no
decay from the lapse of years. What a barren and cheerless waste would
be presented to the eye of man, were all this world of coloring to
disappear with its ever varying distinctions of light and shade--what
a rich source of innocent gratification had been wanting, if these had
never been created. But
“The feet of hoary time
Through their eternal course, have traveled o’er
No speechless, lifeless desert;”
and the confidence of the future is founded upon the promise that seed
time and harvest, summer and winter, shall never fail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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