A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant

A FOREST HYMN

A FOREST HYMN
by
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
with
Illustrations
by
John A.Nums

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by

W. A. TOWNSEND AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.

PRINTED BY ALVORD.

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 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?

me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged 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.

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 the breeze,
And shot towards heaven.

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 worshipper
to hold
Communion with his Maker.

These dim vaults,
These winding aisles,

f human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the
form
Of thy fair works.

ut 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;

barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist
ground,
Are all
instinct
With thee.

is continual worship;—nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence.

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

half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all good it
does.

Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
Of thy perfections.

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.

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,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

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.

all grow old and
die—but see again,
How on the faltering footsteps of
decay
Youth presses—ever gay and
beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms.

lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them.

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.

mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death—yea, seats himself
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
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived

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. Oh, 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—

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,

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.