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,
Fixes his steady gaze,

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 foot-
steps right.1

And therefore bards2 of old,
Sages and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon,5 by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

[The Forest Hymn was written in that early period of Bryant's career, when he was for the most part devoted to the study of nature, and the depicting of its scenes and moods. It overflows with what Wordsworth calls the "religion of the woods," and is pervaded by a sweet solemnity that must touch every impressible soul.]

...

1 On thy. right. Express in your own language the meaning of this stanza.

2 bards. "Bard" (meaning poet) is one of the small number of Celtic words incorporated into English from the language of the original Britons.

3 Sages (from sage, wise), philosophers.

4 hermits of the solemn wood: that is, the British Druids.

5 beacon, signal-fire: connected with beckon.

6 voyager of time. Explain the metaphor.

THE groves were God's first temples.

learned

Ere man

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,2
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 5 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 agéd wood,

1 shaft, the cylindrical column | in his Elegy speaks of the "longbetween the capital (top) and the drawn aisle and fretted vault." base of a column. 4 darkling. See Webster for etymology.

2 architrave. That part of an order of architecture which is over

a column is called the entablature; and the architrave" is that part of an entablature which rests immediately on the column.

5 simple. See Webster for the interesting derivation of this word. 6 resist, withstand.

7 inaccessible. Define.

8 sanctuaries (from Latin sanc

3 vault, an arched ceiling. Gray tus, holy), literally, holy places.

Offer1 one hymn - thrice happy, if it find

Acceptance in his ear.

Father, thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns.3 Thou

Didst weave this verdant roof.4 Thou didst look

down

Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose

6

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 worshiper 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.10 Thou art in the soft winds,
That run along the summit of these trees
In music. Thou art in the cooler breath,

1 Offer. Give a synonym. 2 Acceptance. See Webster. 8 venerable columns. Explain the expression.

4 verdant roof. Explain the expression, and give a synonym of "verdant."

5 century-living, an epithet based on a tradition that the crow lives to a very great age.

6 massy. Of what word is this a poetic form?

" of human pomp... not. Transpose into the prose order.

8 fantastic carvings: that is, as in the cathedrals of man's building. 9 thou. Who?

10 solitude (from Latin solus, alone), hence, literally, the state of being alone.

That, from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes, scarcely felt: the barky1 trunks, the ground,
The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct2 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 visits the strong roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale

Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left.
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak,
By whose immovable 5 stem I stand, and seem
Almost annihilated, — not a prince,

8

In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal9 of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,

1 barky: a Shakespearian adjective.

2 instinct, animated. Noun or adjective? On which syllable is the accent?

3 continual. See Webster. 4 Of thy perfections. What noun does this adjective phrase modify?

5 immovable. Define.

6 annihilated (from Latin nihil, nothing), hence, literally, made to be nothing.

7 old world, etc. Explain. 8 he: antecedent of this pronoun?

9 coronal (from Latin corona, a crown), a crown, wreath, or garland. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 3.)

With delicate breath, and look so like a smile,1
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mold,2
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide 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

For ever.

Written on thy works, I read

The lesson of thy own eternity.

6

Lo! all grow old and die; but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay 5
Youth presses,-ever gay and beautiful youth,
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Molder beneath them. O, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy, Death:8 yea, seats himself

1 so like a smile. What figure? 5 faltering footsteps of decay.

2 mold. For what plain word is | Explain the expression.

6 ancestors. Is the application

token. In of this term to an inanimate object literal or figurative?

3 emanation which case are these nouns?

4 Of the great miracle. What is meant? Miracle" is from the Latin verb mirari, to wonder at; and hence means, literally, an act or object causing wonder.

7 arch. This prefix (from the Greek prefix archi, first, chief) is compounded with many nouns, and intensifies their meaning.

8 Death. What is the figure?