University of Virginia Library

The Moss and Its Teachings

How often pass we by the works of God
Unnoticed, and forget his presence too!
The sea, the sky, the plain, and mountain top,
All these attract our gaze, and make us feel
That mighty Being's Presence, who first formed,
And still sustains the world in which we live.
And yet the tiny moss, which the child's found,
And so admires, to the reflecting tells
The same great truth, too oft by man forgot!
That God is everywhere, his power the same.
Gaze at the moss' varied tints, and arm
Thine eye with microscopic power. Behold
With what a wondrous skill each leaf is made,
Each stalk, a tree, rises above the mould;
Forming, with countless more, a beauteous grove.
Like mightier forests, wilted by the sun,
And covered black with dust, it droops and dies.
Refreshed and washed by showers it lifts its head,
Expands its shrunken boughs, puts on fresh hues,
As grateful for the timely-falling rain.
Think you God's presence here is less displayed,
Than in the forest of high towering oaks;
Which have, for centuries, withstood the storms?
That less than they, it needs the Maker's care?
Who scattered on the rock its dust-like seed,
Preparing thus the way for giant pines,
And mighty oaks to lift their forms on high?
Who hid the mosses 'neath the polar snow,
To feed the reindeer through the winter months,
Or save the life of far-adventuring man?
To humblest things the highest are allied;
And the low moss, on which man careless treads,
Hath with the noblest forms a unity;
And like them, too, an end for which twas made.
Scattered o'er all the earth the mosses grow,
On loftiest mountain and in deepest glen,
In gloomy forest and in open plain;
That no where man may come, and look around,
Without a witness of God's care and love.