That, from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes, scarcely felt: the barky? trunks, the ground,
The fresh, inoist ground, are all instinct 2 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 ʼmidst 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,
In all that proud old world? beyond the deep,
E’er wore his crown as loftily as he 8
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
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,

With delicate breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mold,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token 3 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 4 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.
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 6
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

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

2 mold. For what plain word is Explain the expression. this poetic term used ?

6 ancestors. Is the application 3 emanation

token. In of this term to an inanimate obwhich case are these nouns? ject literal or figurative? 4 of the great miracle. What

7 arch.

This prefix (from the is meant? · Miracle” is from the Greek prefix archi, first, chief) is Latin verb mirari, to wonder at; compounded with many nouns, and hence means, literally, an act and intensifies their meaning. or object causing wonder.

Upon the tyrant's throne, - the sepulcher,1 —
And of the triumphs of his ghastly 2 foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived The generation born with them, nor seemed Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks Around them; and there have been holy men Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. But let me often to these solitudes Retire, and in thy presence re-assure My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, The passions, at thy plainer 5 footsteps shrink And tremble, and are still. O God! when thou Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire The heavens with falling thunderbolts, 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,

1 sepulcher. With what noun | hood, bravery. This was deemed is this word in apposition?

the loftiest of “virtues” by the 2 ghastly, from Anglo-Saxon Romans ; but with Christianity gast, a ghost, and hence literally the word assumed a new meaning, ghost-like.

and received application to the 3 makes his own nourishment. moral qualities. Illustrate.

5 plainer: that is, more visible 4 virtue. This word has an in- than in the turmoil of a city. teresting origin, being derived from scare. Would fright be better? the Latin vir, a man; virtus, man- 7 tempests. See Glossary.

6

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.

6. – THE FUTURE LIFE.

[These lines were addressed by the poet to his wife, and tenderly voice his aspiration of a re-union with his companion in heaven.)

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps

The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither 3 sleeps

And perishes among the dust we tread ?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain

If there I meet thy gentle presence not; Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

2

sphere which keeps, etc. : that is, heaven.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there,

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,

In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, And larger movements of the unfettered mind,

Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The lovel that lived through all the stormy past,

And meekly with my harsher nature bore, And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,

Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light,

Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will In cheerful homage to the rule of right,

And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid 2 cares in which I dwell

Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; And wrath has left its scar, - that fire of hell

Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

1 The love. Note the fine effect | scar,” may be in part explained of this iteration of "the love" in by the fact, that, as editor of a the previous stanza.

political paper (the New-York 2 sordid (from Latin sordidus, Evening Post), he was in an atmosdirty): vile, mean. The poet's allu- phere which the finer spirit of the sions to the “sordid cares” and poet must have often loathed to the wrath which “has left its I breathe.