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And the path of the gentle winds is seen, Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

"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!

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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;

VOL. I.-8

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."

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 In music; thou art in the cooler breath

That from the inmost darkness of the place

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