Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. Volume V. Nature. 1904. COMPLIMENTS OF BARTLEBY.COM V. Trees: Flowers: Plants A Forest Hymn William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) 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, 5 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, 10 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 15 And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why Should we, in the world’s riper years, neglect God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd, and under roofs That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least, 20 Here, in the shadow of this agèd wood, Offer one hymn,—thrice happy if it find Acceptance in his ear. Father, thy hand Hath reared these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 25 Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose All these fair ranks of trees. They in thy sun Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow, Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 30 Among their branches, till at last they stood, As now they stand, massy and tall and dark, Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride 35 Report not. No fantastic carvings show The boast of our vain race to change the form Of thy fair works. But thou art here,—thou fill’st The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds That run along the summit of these trees 40 In music; thou art in the cooler breath That from the inmost darkness of the place Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground, The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee. Here is continual worship;—nature, here, 45 In the tranquillity 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 50 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,— 55 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 Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 60 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, 65 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, 70 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, 75 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 80 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 85 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 90 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 95 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 100 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 105 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, 110 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, 115 In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, And to the beautiful order of thy works Learn to conform the order of our lives. The Arab to the Palm Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) NEXT to thee, O fair gazelle, O Beddowee girl, beloved so well; Next to the fearless Nedjidee, Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee; Next to ye both, I love the palm, 5 With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm; Next to ye both, I love the tree Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three With love and silence and mystery! Our tribe is many, our poets vie 10 With any under the Arab sky; Yet none can sing of the palm but I. The marble minarets that begem Cairo’s citadel-diadem Are not so light as his slender stem. 15 He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam’s glance, As the Almehs lift their arms in dance,— A slumberous motion, a passionate sign, That works in the cells of the blood like wine. Full of passion and sorrow is he, 20 Dreaming where the beloved may be; And when the warm south-winds arise, He breathes his longing in fervid sighs, Quickening odors, kisses of balm, That drop in the lap of his chosen palm. 25 The sun may flame, and the sands may stir, But the breath of his passion reaches her. O tree of love, by that love of thine, Teach me how I shall soften mine! Give me the secret of the sun, 30 Whereby the wooed is ever won! If I were a king, O stately tree, A likeness, glorious as might be, In the court of my palace I ’d build for thee; With a shaft of silver, burnished bright, 35 And leaves of beryl and malachite; 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,— 40 New measures, sung to tunes divine; But none, O palm, should equal mine! The Palm-Tree John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) 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, 5 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? 10 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? 15 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, 20 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 25 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! 30 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 35 With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace. “Allah il Allah!” he sings his psalm On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm; “Thanks to Allah, who gives the palm!” Among the Redwoods Edward Rowland Sill (1841–1887) FAREWELL to such a world! Too long I press The crowded pavement with unwilling feet. Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatefulness, And both are poisons. In the forest sweet The shade, the peace! Immensity, that seems 5 To drown the human life of doubts and dreams. Far off the massive portals of the wood, Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene, Waited my coming. Speedily I stood Where the dun wall rose roofed in plumy green. 10 Dare one go in?—Glance backward! Dusk as night Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light. Let me, along this fallen bole, at rest, Turn to the cool, dim roof my glowing face. Delicious dark on weary eyelids prest! 15 Enormous solitude of silent space, But for a low and thunderous ocean sound, Too far to hear, felt thrilling through the ground. No stir nor call the sacred hush profanes; Save when from some bare tree-top, far on high, 20 Fierce disputations of the clamorous cranes Fall muffled, as from out the upper sky. So still, one dreads to wake the dreaming air, Breaks a twig softly, moves the foot with care. The hollow dome is green with empty shade, 25 Struck through with slanted shafts of afternoon; Aloft, a little rift of blue is made, Where slips a ghost that last night was the moon. Beside its pearl a sea-cloud stays its wing, Beneath, a tilted hawk is balancing. 30 The heart feels not in every time and mood What is around it. Dull as any stone I lay; then, like a darkening dream, the wood Grew Karnac’s temple, where I breathed alone In the awed air strange incense, and uprose 35 Dim, monstrous columns in their dread repose. The mind not always sees; but if there shine A bit of fern-lace bending over moss, A silky glint that rides a spider-line, On a trefoil two shadow spears that cross, 40 Three grasses that toss up their nodding heads, With spring and curve like clustered fountain-threads, Suddenly, through side windows of the eye, Deep solitudes, where never souls have met; Vast spaces, forest corridors that lie 45 In a mysterious world, unpeopled yet. Because the outward eye was elsewhere caught, The awfulness and wonder come unsought. If death be but resolving back again Into the world’s deep soul, this is a kind 50 Of quiet, happy death, untouched by pain Or sharp reluctance. For I feel my mind Is interfused with all I hear and see; As much a part of All as cloud or tree. Listen! A deep and solemn wind on high; 55 The shafts of shining dust shift to and fro; The columned trees sway imperceptibly, And creak as mighty masts when trade-winds blow. The cloudy sails are set; the earth ship swings Along the sea of space to grander things.
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