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!

But though to few is given the subtle charm
To crystallize the fluid thought to form,

There beats no heart, within whose inmost cell
Lurks not the witchery of Art's magic spell.
Round every breast some happy memory clings,
Some winds steal Music from the slackest strings;
The coldest heart at moments must aspire,

The stoniest sense hath hidden sparks of fire.
Stray as we may, we cannot wholly roam
Beyond the memory of our former home,

And dreams, that in the guileless soul have lain,
In peaceful hours return to it again.

Though manhood's sky a darkening film may shroud,
In childhood's distance sleeps a rosy cloud.

Some trait of grace we all must have to love,
Some gleam of beauty dawning from above,

Some God to whom we lift our secret prayer,
Some love whose light may shield us from despair.

But ere the soul hath felt the blight of Time, The human with the heavenly blend in rhyme; Still to the call of Freedom it responds,

On its own limbs it feels a brother's bonds,