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,


Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,


And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks


And supplication.


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 ancient 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 toward 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.


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


Forever. Written on thy works, I read


The lesson of thy own eternity.


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, reassure


My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,


The passions, at thy plainer 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,


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.


 


 


Bryant.