The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines.
His words are music to my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

FORBEARANCE

HAST thou named all the birds without a gun? Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? And loved so well a high behavior,

In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, Nobility more nobly to repay?

O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

From: WOODNOTES

1

For this present, hard

Is the fortune of the bard,
Born out of time;

All his accomplishment,

From Nature's utmost treasure spent,
Booteth not him.

When the pine tosses its cones

To the song of its waterfall tones,
He speeds to the woodland walks,
To birds and trees he talks:
Cæsar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.

He goes to the river-side-
Not hook nor line hath he;

He stands in the meadows wide,-
Nor gun nor scythe to see;

With none has he to do,
And none seek him,
Nor men below,
Nor spirits dim.

Sure some god his eye enchants:
What he knows nobody wants.
In the wood he travels glad,
Without better fortune had,
Melancholy without bad.
Planter of celestial plants,
What he knows nobody wants;
What he knows he hides, not vaunts.
Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest:

Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,
Grass-buds, and caterpillar-shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violet's petal,
Why Nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats:
Lover of all things alive,

Wonderer at all he meets,
Wonderer chiefly at himself-
Who can tell him what he is?
Or how meet in human elf
Coming and past eternities?

2

And such I knew, a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Foreteller of the vernal ides,
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
A lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that Nature could not raise

A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, on snowy hill,

Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,

As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long-descended race.

It seemed as if the breezes brought him;
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him;
As if by secret sight he knew
Where, in far fields, the orchis grew.
Many haps fall in the field

Seldom seen by wishful eyes,

But all her shows did Nature yield,
To please and win this pilgrim wise.
He saw the partridge drum in the woods;
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn;
He found the tawny thrush's broods;
And the shy hawk did wait for him;
What others did at distance hear,
And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
Was showed to this philosopher,

And at his bidding seemed to come.

3

In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberer's gang,
Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang;
He trode the unplanted forest floor, whereon

The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone;
Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear,
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker.
He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds,
The slight Linnaea hang its twin-born heads,
And blessed the monument of the man of flowers,

Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers.
He heard, when in the grove, at intervals,

With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls,

One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree,
Declares the close of its green century.

Low lies the plant to whose creation went
Sweet influence from every element;

Whose living towers the years conspired to build,
Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild.
Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed,
He roamed, content alike with man and beast.
Where darkness found him he lay glad at night;
There the red morning touched him with its light.
Three moons his great heart him a hermit made,
So long he roved at will the boundless shade.
The timid it concerns to ask their way;
And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray,
To make no step until the event is known,
And ills to come as evils past bemoan.
Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps
To spy what danger on his pathway creeps;
Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome;
Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road,
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed.

"Hearken once more!

I will tell thee the mundane lore.
Older am I than thy numbers wot;
Change I may, but I pass not.
Hitherto all things fast abide,
And anchored in the tempest ride.
Trenchant time behooves to hurry
All to yean and all to bury:
All the forms are fugitive,
But the substances survive.
Ever fresh the broad creation,
A divine improvisation,
From the heart of God proceeds,
A single will, a million deeds.

Once slept the world an egg of stone,

And pulse, and sound, and light was none;

And God said, 'Throb!' and there was motion,
And the vast mass became vast ocean.
Onward and on, the eternal Pan,
Who layeth the world's incessant plan,
Halteth never in one shape,

But forever doth escape,

Like wave or flame, into new forms
Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms.
I, that to-day am a pine,

Yesterday was a bundle of grass.
He is free and libertine,

Pouring of his power the wine
To every age, to every race;
Unto every race and age
He emptieth the beverage;
Unto each and unto all,
Maker and original.

The world is the ring of his spells,
And the play of his miracles.
As he giveth to all to drink,
Thus or thus they are and think.
He giveth little or giveth much,
To make them several or such.

With one drop sheds form and feature;
With the next a special nature;

The third adds heat's indulgent spark;

The fourth gives light which eats the dark;'

Into the fifth himself he flings,

And conscious Law is King of kings.
Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child,
To play his sweet will, glad and wild;
As the bee through the garden ranges,
From world to world the godhead changes;
As the sheep go feeding in the waste,
From form to form he maketh haste;
This vault which glows immense with light
Is the inn where he lodges for a night.