The tree which thou passedst but a little ago, and which perhaps has laid
over yonder brook for years, can now hardly support itself, and in a few
months more it will have fallen into the water.

Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to the left. It seems entire
amid the surrounding fragments. Mere outward appearance, delusive phantom
of what it once was! Tread on it and, like the fuss-ball, it will break
into dust.

Sad and silent mementos to the giddy traveller as he wanders on! Prostrate
remnants of vegetable nature, how incontestably ye prove what we must all
at last come to, and how plain your mouldering ruins show that the firmest
texture avails us naught when Heaven wills that we should cease to be!

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.

Cast thine eye around thee and see the thousands of Nature's productions.
Take a view of them from the opening seed on the surface sending a downward
shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees rising up and blooming in wild
luxuriance: some side by side, others separate; some curved and knotty,
others straight as lances; all, in beautiful gradation, fulfilling the
mandates they had received from Heaven and, though condemned to die, still
never failing to keep up their species till time shall be no more.

Reader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a few months to the good of