Then soon that planetary sea
  Is studded o’er with diadems,
Shining alike on land and sea. 
High, high above the loftiest tree;
  Proud Nature’s priceless gems.

Who would not leave the crowded room,
  The grand, but cold musician’s art;
To wander ’neath the calm still moon. 
When nature speaks ’mid wild perfume,
  So sweetly to the heart.

  Who would not shun proud Fashion’s hall,
    Escape her cold and torturings ways,
  To calmly rest where dew-drops fall;
  Perfumes that mind and soul enthrall,
    Beneath fair Luna’s rays.

  Who would exchange a home of flowers,
    Down in a pure and modest dell,
  For palaces ’mid art-reared bowers,
  Washed o’er by artificial showers,
    Where naught but sorrows dwell.

  Blest hour of thought! to thy pure scene
    A mild and soothing charm is given,
  When hearts to hearts in love convene,
  And roses deck the silvered green
    Of mingled Earth and Heaven.

  The truth—­that plainly proves a God,
    Not chance, performed the better part
  Which teaches us His Heavenly Word: 
  Breathes magic for the singing bird,
    And links us heart to heart.

REV.  WILLIAM DUKE.

The Rev. William Duke was born in the southern part of what is now Harford county, but was at the time of his birth included in Baltimore county, on the 15th of September, 1757, and died in Elkton on the 31st of May, 1840.  He became enamoured of the doctrines of Methodism in early youth, and allied himself with that denomination before its separation from the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was licensed to preach by Rev. Francis Asbury when he was only seventeen years old.  Mr. Duke’s name appears upon the minutes of the first Conference, held in Philadelphia in 1774, as one of the seven ministers who were that year taken on trial.  The next year he was admitted to full membership, and remained in connection with the Conference as a traveling preacher until 1779, when he ceased to travel, and subsequently took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church; being impelled to do so by his opposition to the erection of the Methodist Society into an independent Church.

Mr. Duke became Rector of North Elk Parish in 1793, but resigned the charge three years later, and removed to Anne Arundel county, but returned to Elkton about a year afterwards; soon after he removed to Kent county, where he taught a parochial school for a short time, but returned to Elkton again in 1799 and opened a school, and preached during the three following years at North East, Elkton, and at the Episcopal Church near New London, Pa.

In 1803 he was appointed Professor of Languages in St. John’s College, Annapolis, and had charge of St. Ann’s Church, in that city, until 1806, when he returned to Elkton, and the next year took charge of the Elkton Academy.