Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:
Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,

Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR.

And thou dost see them rise,

Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.

Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve, that round the eartli

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;

There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High towards the star-lit sky

Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun,

The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud,

And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze

The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,

89

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,

Sages and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

W

SONG OF THE STARS.

HEN the radiant morn of creation broke,

And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death

Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,

And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,-

In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rang,

And this was the song the bright ones sang:

Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,

The fair blue fields that before us lie,—

Each sun with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole,
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink as we go the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides;
Lo, yonder the living splendors play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,

In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!

How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!

And the path of the gentle winds is seen,

Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

A FOREST HYMN.

"And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, Love is brooding, and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.

"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent,
To the furthest wall of the firmament,-
The boundless visible smile of Him,

To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim."

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A FOREST HYMN.

THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them,-ere he framed

The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems,-in the darkling wood,

Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,

And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences

Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once

All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why

Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,

Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,

Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find

Acceptance in His ear.

Father, thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns, thou

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here-thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds

That run along the summit of these trees