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Show II NATURE'S BENEDICTION. One of the most gifted of American public men was John J. Jn- " galls, the author q "Opportunity," a poem as widely quoted as any I place in the English language. Lately an article Avritten by him on the prosaic subject of gass, has been copied by many papers, and , it' discloses so much ability in making the commonplace interesting that the tribute is here reproduced: "Lying in the sunshine among the buttercups and dandelions i of May, scarcely higher in intellect, than the minute tenants of that i mimic' wilderness, our earliest recollections are of grass; and when the fitful fever is ended, and the foolish wrangle of the market and I forum is closed, grass heals over the scar which our descent into the 'j earth has made and the carpet, of the infant becomes the blanket for J the dead. ! "Grass is the forgiveness of Nature her constant benediction, f j Fields trampled in battle, saturated with blood, torr. with the ruts of ' j cannon, grow green again with the grass, and carnage is forgotten. L j b'treets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like, rural lanes ! I and are obliterated. I 1 "Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is I j immortal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws i into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality and . emerges upon the first solicitation of spring, jj "Sown by the winds, by the wandering birds, propagated by Ii the subtle agriculture of the elements which arc its ministers and 'i ' servants, it softens the rude outline of the world. It bears no blaz-onry blaz-onry of bloom to charm the senses with fragrance and splendor, but . , its homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no fruits in earth or air, and yet, should its harvest fail for j a single year, famine would depopulate the earth." |