NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



PART I. 

 HOME PLANTS AND THEIR WAYS. 



PRELUDE TO "A FOREST HYMN." 



1. 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, 

 Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, 

 And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 

 And supplication. 



2. 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. 



