Here is continual worship ;-nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love, Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, From perch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs, Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left Thyself without a witness, in these shades, Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak- By whose immovable stem I stand and seem Almost annihilated-not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep, Ere wore his crown as loftily as he Wears the green coronal of leaves with which Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower With scented breath, and look so like a smile, Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, An emanation of the indwelling Life, A visible token of the upholding Love, That are the soul of this wide universe.
My heart is awed within me when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me-the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die—but see again, How on the faltering footsteps of decay Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees Wave not less proudly that their ancestors Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet, After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death-yea, seats himself Upon the tyrant's throne—the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks Around them;-and there have been holy men Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, With all the waters of the firmament,
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods And drowns the villages; when, at thy call, Uprises the great deep and throws himself Upon the continent, and overwhelms Its cities who forgets not, at the sight Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath Of the mad unchained elements to teach Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate In these calm shades thy milder majesty, And to the beautiful order of thy works Learn to conform the order of our lives.
"OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS."
OH fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, Were all that met thy infant eye.
Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, Were ever in the sylvan wild; And all the beauty of the place Is in thy heart and on thy face.
The twilight of the trees and rocks Is in the light shade of thy locks; Thy step is as the wind, that weaves Its playful way among the leaves.
Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen; Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.
The forest depths, by foot unpressed. Are not more sinless than thy breast; The holy peace, that fills the air Of those calm solitudes, is there.
"I BROKE THE SPELL THAT HELD ME LONG."
I BROKE the spell that held me long, The dear, dear witchery of song. I said, the poet's idle lore
Shall waste my prime of years no more, For Poetry, though heavenly born, Consorts with poverty and scorn.
I broke the spell-nor deemed its power Could fetter me another hour.
Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget
Its causes were around me yet?
For wheresoe'er I looked, the while,
Was nature's everlasting smile.
Still came and lingered on my sight
Of flowers and streams the bloom and light, And glory of the stars and sun ;-
And these and poetry are one.
They, ere the world had held me long,
Recalled me to the love of song.
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