ARBOR DA Y MANUAL . 
5 
Here is continual worship — Nature, here, 
In the tranquility 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 
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 
AVears the green coronal of leaves with which 
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, 
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, 
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, 
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. 515 * * 
There have been holy men who hid themselves 
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 
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
