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 unprest,
Are not more sinless than thy breast;
The holy peace, that fills the air
Of those calm solitudes, is there.

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 influence
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

The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds That run along the summit of these trees In music; thou art in the cooler breath That from the inmost darkness of the place Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,

The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.

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 wandering steeps the roots

Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in the 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

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 great 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
Forever. 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

Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire

The heavens with falling thunder-bolts, 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.

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:

Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

THE PAST

THOU unrelenting Past! Strong are the barriers round thy dark do main,

And fetters, sure and fast, Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,

The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast;

Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows

The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,

And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,

And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;

And they who stand about the sick man's bed

Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, And softly part his curtains to allow Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go-but the circle of eternal change,

Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,

Thee to thy birthplace of the deep

once more;

Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,

Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;

And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running

stream.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN

THOU blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night,

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thon waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frost and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

For here the fair savannas know
No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam, Hides vainly in the forest's edge; In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;

The brinded catamount, that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey, Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and cumbered with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind

Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound,