Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: 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, There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are done; 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, 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, A beauteous type of that unchanging good, 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 In the joy of youth as they darted away, 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, "For the source of glory uncovers his face, "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, Away, away! in our blossoming bowers, "Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim." 41 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 Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect 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 All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, That run along the summit of these trees |