The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,
And smoothed the Tyrrhene seas.
Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rise!
Confusion dwelt in every face,
And fear in every heart,
When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs,
O'ercame the pilot's art.
Yet then, from all my griefs, O Lord,
Thy mercy set me free;
Whilst, in the confidence of prayer,
My soul took hold on Thee.
For though in dreadful whirls we hung,
High on the broken wave,
I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.
The storm was laid, the winds retired,
Obedient to thy will:
The sea that roared at thy command,
At thy command was still.
In midst of dangers, fears, and death,
Thy goodness I'll adore;
And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.
My life, if thou preserv'st my life,
Thy sacrifice shall be ;
And death, if death must be my doom,
Shall join my soul to thee!
III.-THANATOPSIS; OR, A VIEW OF DEATH.
William Cullen Bryant, one of the most popular, perhaps the most popular, of living American poets, was born in the State of Massachusetts in 1794. He studied for the profession of the law, but turned journalist, and in 1828 became co-editor of the New York Evening Post.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,-
Go forth under the open sky and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters and the depths of air,-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again:
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor could'st thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste,-
Are but the solemn declarations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.-Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings-yet-the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.-
So shalt thou rest-and what if thou withdraw
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages, glide away the sons of men,—
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the grey-headed man,-
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.
IV.-FOREST HYMN.
(BRYANT.)
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. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the grey 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 aged wood,
Offer one hymn-thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in His ear.
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 towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was on 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 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.
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 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 feet
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,
|