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

Of the invisible breath that swayed at

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 Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,

The fresh moist ground, are all instinct

with thee.

By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated not a prince
In all that proud old world beyond the
deep

E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with

which

Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his

root

Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare

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.