The friendly robin’s gracious note,—­
    The hills, with curious weeds o’errun,—­
  The althea, with her crimson coat
    Tricked out to please the wearied sun,—­

  The dandelion, whose golden share
    Is set before the rustic’s plough,—­
  The hum of insects in the air,—­
    The blooming bush,—­the withered bough,—­

  The coming on of eve,—­the springs
    Of daybreak, soft and silver-bright,—­
  The frost, that with rough, rugged wings
    Blows down the cankered buds,—­the white,

  Long drifts of winter snow,—­the heat
    Of August, falling still and wide,—­
  Broad cornfields,—­one chance stalk of wheat,
    Standing with bright head hung aside,—­

  All things, my darling, all things seem
    In some strange way to speak of thee;
  Nothing is half so much a dream,
    Nothing so much reality.

  My soul to thine is dutiful,
    In all its pleasure, all its care;
  O most beloved! most beautiful! 
    I miss, and find thee everywhere!

* * * * *

GLACIAL PERIOD.

In the early part of the summer of 1840, I started from Switzerland for England with the express object of finding traces of glaciers in Great Britain.  This glacier-hunt was at that time a somewhat perilous undertaking for the reputation of a young naturalist like myself, since some of the greatest names in science were arrayed against the novel glacial theory.  And it was not strange that it should be at first discredited by the scientific world, for hitherto all the investigations of geologists had gone to show that a degree of heat far greater than any now prevailing characterized the earlier periods of the world’s history.  Even Charpentier, my precursor and master in glacial research, who first showed the greater extent of Swiss glaciers in former times, had not thought of any more general application of his result, or connected their former boundaries with any great change in the climatic conditions of the whole continent.  His explanation of the phenomena rested upon the assumption that the Alps formerly rose far beyond their present height; their greater altitude, he thought, would account for the existence of immense glaciers extending from the Alps across the plain of Switzerland to the Jura.  Inexperienced as I then was, and ignorant of the modes by which new views, if founded on truth, commend themselves gradually to general acceptation, I was often deeply depressed by the skepticism of men whose scientific position gave them a right to condemn the views of younger and less experienced students.  I can smile now at the difficulties which then beset my path, but at the time they seemed serious enough.  It is but lately, that, in turning over the leaves of a journal, published some twelve or fifteen years ago, to look for a forgotten date, I was amused to find a formal announcement, under the signature of the greatest geologist of Europe, of the demise of the glacial theory.  Since then it has risen, phoenix-like, from its own funeral pile.