Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls ;
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam
Of the warm west, as if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
The unclouded skies of Peristan !
And then, the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Banqueting through the flowery vales; And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales !

Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes A new wonder each minute as slowly it breaks, Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one Out of darkness, as they were just born of the

sun;

When the spirit of fragrance is up with the day, From his harem of night-flowers stealing away; And the wind, full of wantonness, wooes like a lover

The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over ; When the east is as warm as the light of first hopes,

And day, with its banner of radiance unfurled, Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes,

Sublime, from that valley of bliss to the world!

THOMAS MOORE.

A FOREST HYMN.

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

own.

Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells, Here the Magian his urn full of perfume is swinging,

And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing.

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.

Father, thy hand

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

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 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. O, 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. Life 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 out-
lived

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.

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. O 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, who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
O, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchainèd 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.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE PRIMEVAL FOREST.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO "EVANGELINE."

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ?

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,

With spikes of golden bloom ablaze,
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase ;
And there the poets, in thy praise,
Should night and morning frame new lays,

New measures, sung to tunes divine;
But none, O palm, should equal mine!

BAYARD TAYLOR.

THE PALM-TREE.

Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,

On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm ? Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm ?

A ship whose keel is of palm beneath,
Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath,
And a rudder of palm it steereth with.

Branches of palm are its spars and rails,
Fibres of palm are its woven sails,
And the rope is of palm that idly trails!

What does the good ship bear so well?
The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,
And the milky sap of its inner cell.

What are its jars, so smooth and fine,
But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine,
And the cabbage that ripens under the Line?

Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm?
The master, whose cunning and skill could charm
Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm.

In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft,
From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed,
And a palm thatch shields from the sun aloft !

His dress is woven of palmy strands,
And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands,
Traced with the Prophet's wise commands !

The turban folded about his head

Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid,
And the fan that cools him of palm was made.

Of threads of palm was the carpet spun
Whereon he kneels when the day is done,
And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!

To him the palm is a gift divine, Wherein all uses of man combine, — House and raiment and food and wine!

And, in the hour of his great release,
His need of the palm shall only cease
With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace.