Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

He fled from Nature’s silent smile, as that poor old King Edward (mis-called the Confessor) fled from her hymns of praise, in the old legend of Havering-atte-bower, when he cursed the nightingales because their songs confused him in his prayers: but the wise man need copy neither, and fear neither the silence nor the laughter of the mighty mother Earth, if he will be but wise, and hear her tell him, alike in both— “Why call me mother? Why ask me for knowledge which I cannot teach, peace which I cannot give or take away? I am only your foster-mother and your nurse— and I have not been an unkindly one. But you are God’s children, and not mine. Ask Him. I can amuse you with my songs; but they are but a nurse’s lullaby to the weary flesh. I can awe you with my silence; but my silence is only my just humility, and your gain. How dare I pretend to tell you secrets which He who made me knows alone? I am but inanimate matter; why ask of me things which belong to living spirit? In God I live and move, and have my being; I know not how, any more than you know. Who will tell you what life is, save He who is the Lord of life? And if He will not tell you, be sure it is because you need not to know. At least, why seek God in nature, the living among the dead? He is not here: He is risen.”