With the sure feet of fate pursue his way,
Urge him till he their ceaseless call obey,
Till Art, with spirit hopeful as the morn,
The child of Nature and the Soul is born.

Thus struggling on, the artist seeks to find
The charm, that marries matter unto mind.
With his own life the world of sense he warms,
And Nature to his passion he transforms;

To him her shape is ever fresh and young,
New music lives forever on her tongue,

With every change she weaves a magic spell,
And daily works an endless miracle.

Knit thus together by a secret bond,

The spirit unto Nature must respond,

For some strange spell unites them at our birth,

And shapes us half from heaven, and half from earth.

Though Custom blur the sense, and dim the eye,

And blot out beauty from the common sky,
All from its wretched slavery breaking loose
At times will burst the bondage of its use,
And free in thought respond to Nature's tone,
And feel her throbbing heart against their own.

He, who to Nature lends a reverent ear,

One voice through all her changeful works shall hear,
From great to small shall see one mighty cause
Ordain her circle, and prescribe her laws.

The stars wide-rolling on their pathless course,
The restless sea, the torrent brawling hoarse,
The common earth, the clouds, the open sky,
The circling seasons' sweet variety,

The rounded pebble, and the winged seed,
The idle flower, the never-blooming weed,

All, from the starry sky unto the clod,
Shall whisper of the Universal God.

Though that calm tone be drowned by din and strife,

That softly sings through every phase of life,
There breathes no man whose spirit is not awed,
When Nature rousing with her voice of dread,
Clad in her tempests, in her earthquake tread,
In pealing anthems shouts the name of God.
So have I heard it, when with pulsing shocks
The swelling ocean climbs the naked rocks,
When the uplifting surf in darkening might
Shakes out its glistening mane into the light,

And combing up along the sunny reach,
Plunges in crowding foam upon the beach.

So have I heard its deep and solemn call

Still sounding on forever day by day,

Where with a thunderous hum the waters fall

Down the abysses of Niagara.

Like hell-hounds from their slumber waking,

And panting madly for their

prey,

Their whitening manes in fury shaking

And howling down their rocky way,

From Erie's sleep, in rushing rapids breaking, Storms down Niagara.

Wildly towards their dread abyss

Hurrying they rage, and foam, and hiss,

Over their shelving precipice;

Yet pausing on those awful steeps,

Firm, solid, and compact,

With heavy plunge, and hollow anthem, sweeps

All-all together in one emerald mass,

The thundering cataract;

And evermore its solemn roar

Peals up the heavens, and down the shore,

While from the unremitting storm

Of seething foam below,

Rises the water's ghost-like form

In its shroud of misty snow.

With thee the wrestling storm hath striven, The wintry blast hath grasped thee by the mane, And from the summer's darkening heaven, Plunging into thy breast its forked levin, The thunder answered to thy call again; But undecaying in thy pauseless power, Heedless of storm, and reckless of the hour, Deep-deep-with everlasting trumpet-tone, Thou soundest ever on.

A thousand harvests of the human race
Hath Death's keen sickle shorn,

Since thou wast in convulsions born;

But like a passing mist across thy face,
Year follows year, and age succeeds to age,
And terrible as at thine hour of birth,

Thy hoary locks thou shakest wildly forth,
And scarless, in eternal youth dost rage.

Falling -falling-as if in huge despair,

Thy watery weight descends;

Rising rising as Hope were ever there,

To heaven again it tends ;

And Faith her rainbow-bridge uprears

Upon the shattered spray of tears,

And o'er the roaring gulf its arch extends.

Strong as thou art, there is for thee an hour!

There is for thee a law!

Its limits an Almighty power

Around thy strength can draw;

Who forged the universe unto his will,

Can chain thy fury, bid thy storm be still;

He who hath given paths unto the stars,

And meted to the universe its round,

Who clothed thy being with the voice of wars, Hath set thee thine appointed bound.

Thundering thou dashest on with awful roar,

Yet bendest humbly to His stern decree ;

And thou unto His eye art nothing more

Than the frail swallows, that forever soar
Above thy terrors, by his law made free;
Flames over thee and all the fiery sword,
Thou servest - thou art bondsman to the Lord!