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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116423" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Forest Hymn</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned<br>To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,<br>And spread the roof above them,---ere he framed<br>The lofty vault, to gather and roll back<br>The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,<br>Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,<br>And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks<br>And supplication. For his simple heart<br>Might not resist the sacred influences,<br>Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,<br>And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven<br>Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound<br>Of the invisible breath that swayed at once<br>All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed<br>His spirit with the thought of boundless power<br>And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why<br>Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect<br>God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore<br>Only among the crowd, and under roofs,<br>That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,<br>Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,<br>Offer one hymn---thrice happy, if it find<br>Acceptance in His ear.<br>Father, thy hand<br>Hath reared these venerable columns, thou<br>Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down<br>Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose<br>All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,<br>Budded, and shook their green leaves in the breeze,<br>And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,<br>Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died<br>Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,<br>As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,<br>Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold<br>Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,<br>These winding aisles, of human pomp and pride<br>Report not. No fantastic carvings show<br>The boast of our vain race to change the form<br>Of thy fair works. But thou art here---thou fill'st<br>The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds<br>That run along the summit of these trees<br>In music; thou art in the cooler breath<br>That from the inmost darkness of the place<br>Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,<br>The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.<br>Here is continual worship;---Nature, here,<br>In the tranquility that thou dost love,<br>Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,<br>From perch to perch, the solitary bird<br>Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,<br>Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots<br>Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale<br>Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left<br>Thyself without a witness, in these shades,<br>Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace<br>Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak---<br>By whose immovable stem I stand and seem<br>Almost annihilated---not a prince,<br>In all that proud old world beyond the deep,<br>E'er wore his crown as lofty as he<br>Wears the green coronal of leaves with which<br>Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root<br>Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare<br>Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower<br>With scented breath, and look so like a smile,<br>Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,<br>An emanation of the indwelling Life,<br>A visible token of the upholding Love,<br>That are the soul of this wide universe.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My heart is awed within me when I think<br>Of the great miracle that still goes on,<br>In silence, round me---the perpetual work<br>Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed<br>Forever. Written on thy works I read<br>The lesson of thy own eternity.<br>Lo! all grow old and die---but see again,<br>How on the faltering footsteps of decay<br>Youth presses----ever gay and beautiful youth<br>In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees<br>Wave not less proudly that their ancestors<br>Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost<br>One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,<br>After the flight of untold centuries,<br>The freshness of her far beginning lies<br>And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate<br>Of his arch enemy Death---yea, seats himself<br>Upon the tyrant's throne---the sepulchre,<br>And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe<br>Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth<br>From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There have been holy men who hid themselves<br>Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave<br>Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived<br>The generation born with them, nor seemed<br>Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks<br>Around them;---and there have been holy men<br>Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.<br>But let me often to these solitudes<br>Retire, and in thy presence reassure<br>My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,<br>The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink<br>And tremble and are still. Oh, God! when thou<br>Dost scare the world with falling thunderbolts, or fill,<br>With all the waters of the firmament,<br>The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods<br>And drowns the village; when, at thy call,<br>Uprises the great deep and throws himself<br>Upon the continent, and overwhelms<br>Its cities---who forgets not, at the sight<br>Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,<br>His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?<br>Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face<br>Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath<br>Of the mad unchained elements to teach<br>Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,<br>In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,<br>And to the beautiful order of the works<br>Learn to conform the order of our lives.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Cullen+Bryant">William Cullen Bryant</a><div class=q>
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