Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they;
Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:

Many a bright lingerer,2 as the eve grows dim, Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,

Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air;
And eve, that round the earth

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

4

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done:
High towards the starlit sky

Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun,5

1 in his flaming way. Whose? 2 bright lingerer. Explain. 3 Nor join'st the dances, etc. Explain the metaphor.

4 shapes of polar flame, the aurora borealis.

5 blots the sun. Change this poetical into a prose expression.

The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud,
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze

The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes by night
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their foot-
steps right.1

And therefore bards2 of old,

3

Sages and hermits of the solemn wood,1

Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good, That bright eternal beacon,5 by whose ray The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

5. FOREST HYMN.

[The Forest Hymn was written in that early period of Bryant's career, when he was for the most part devoted to the study of nature, and the depicting of its scenes and moods. It overflows with what Wordsworth calls the "religion of the woods," and is pervaded by a sweet solemnity that must touch every impressible soul.]

...

1 On thy. right. Express in your own language the meaning of this stanza.

2 bards. "Bard" (meaning poet) is one of the small number of Celtic words incorporated into English from the language of the original Britons.

3 Sages (from sage, wise), philosophers.

4 hermits of the solemn wood: that is, the British Druids.

5 beacon, signal-fire: connected with beckon.

6

voyager of time. Explain the metaphor.

THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man

learned

4

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,2
And spread the roof above them; ere he framed
The lofty vault,3 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. For his simple heart
5

6

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. 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, Here, in the shadow of this agéd wood,

1 shaft, the cylindrical column | in his Elegy speaks of the “longbetween the capital (top) and the base of a column.

2 architrave. That part of an order of architecture which is over

6.

a column is called the entablature; and the architrave" is that part of an entablature which rests immediately on the column.

drawn aisle and fretted vault."

4 darkling. See Webster for etymology.

5 simple. See Webster for the interesting derivation of this word. 6 resist, withstand.

7 inaccessible. Define.

8 sanctuaries (from Latin sanc

3 vault, an arched ceiling. Gray Itus, holy), literally, holy places.

Offer one hymn 1

-thrice happy, if it find

Father, thy hand

Acceptance in his ear.

Hath reared these venerable columns.3 Thou

Didst weave this verdant roof.4 Thou didst look

down

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
Among their branches; till at last they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race, to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here.
The solitude.10 Thou art in the soft winds,
That run along the summit of these trees
In music. Thou art in the cooler breath,

Thou fill'st

That, from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes, scarcely felt: the barky 1 trunks, the ground,
The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual3 worship; Nature here,

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 visits the strong 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 5 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
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,

1 barky: a Shakespearian adjective.

2 instinct, animated. Noun or adjective? On which syllable is the accent?

3 continual. See Webster.

4 Of thy perfections. What noun does this adjective phrase modify?

5 immovable. Define.

6 annihilated (from Latin nihil, nothing), hence, literally, made to be nothing.

7 old world, etc. Explain.

8 he: antecedent of this pronoun?

9 coronal (from Latin corona, a crown), a crown, wreath, or garland. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 3.)