| |
| 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, | 5 |
| Amidst 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 influences | |
| Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| Here, in the shadow of this agèd 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 | 25 |
| 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 towards heaven. The century-living crow, | |
| Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died | 30 |
| Among their branches, till at last they stood, | |
| As now they stand, massy and tall and dark, | |
| Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold | |
| Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, | |
| These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| 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. | |
| Here is continual worship;—nature, here, | 45 |
| 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 wandering steeps the roots | 50 |
| 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,— | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 scented breath, and look so like a smile, | |
| Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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. | |
| Lo! all grow old and die; but see again, | 75 |
| How on the faltering footsteps of decay | |
| Youth presses,—ever gay and beautiful youth | |
| In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees | |
| Wave not less proudly that their ancestors | |
| Moulder beneath them. O, there is not lost | 80 |
| 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,—yea, seats himself | 85 |
| Upon the tyrant’s throne, the sepulchre, | |
| And of the triumphs of his ghastly 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 | 90 |
| 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 | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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 | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? | |
| O, from these sterner aspects of thy face | |
| Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath | |
| Of the mad unchainèd elements to teach | |
| Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate, | 115 |
| In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, | |
| And to the beautiful order of thy works | |
| Learn to conform the order of our lives. | |
| |
