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Among the many objects used for adornment, there is a very pretty one which we would like
to see more frequently employed, and which when properly placed by the side of some walk
well retired from other objects, is in itself highly suggestive. We refer to the Sun-dial.
What thoughts this monitor suggests to the mind! how silent, yet how eloquent! His must be
a vacant mind indeed who can pass such a teacher without finding thought to accompany his
walk. A shadow teacheth us, and we learn in the end that we have pursued but shadows.
In the beautiful words of the poet:
"This shadow on the dial's face,
That steals from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments, and months, and years away;
This shadow, which in every clime,
Since light and motion first began,
Hath held its course sublime-
What is it? Mortal man!
It is the scythe of time-
A shadow only to the eye;
Yet in its calm career
It levels all beneath the sky;
And still , through each succeeding year
Right onward with resistless power,
Its stroke shall darken every hour,
Till nature's race be run,
And time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun."
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