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THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned
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To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
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And spread the roof above them—ere he framed
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The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
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The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
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Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
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And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
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And supplication. For his simple heart
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Might not resist the sacred influences
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Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
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And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
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Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
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Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
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All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
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His spirit with the thought of boundless power
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And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
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Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
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God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
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Only among the crowd, and under roofs
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That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
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Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
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Offer one hymn—thrice happy if it find
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Acceptance in His ear.
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Father, thy hand
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Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
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Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
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Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose
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All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
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Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
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And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
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Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
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Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
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As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
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Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
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Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
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These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
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Report not. No fantastic carvings show
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The boast of our vain race to change the form
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Of thy fair works. But thou art here—thou fill'st
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The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
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That run along the summit of these trees
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In music; thou art in the cooler breath
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That from the inmost darkness of the place
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Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
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The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
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Here is continual worship;—Nature, here,
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In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
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Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
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From perch to perch, the solitary bird
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Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
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Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots
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Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
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Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
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Thyself without a witness, in these shades,
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Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace,
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Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak,—
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By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
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Almost annihilated—not a prince,
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In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
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E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
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Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
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Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
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Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
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Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
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With scented breath and look so like a smile,
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Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
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An emanation of the indwelling Life,
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A visible token of the upholding Love,
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That are the soul of this great universe.
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My heart is awed within me when I think
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Of the great miracle that still goes on,
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In silence, round me—the perpetual work
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Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
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Forever. Written on thy works I read
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The lesson of thy own eternity.
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Lo! all grow old and die—but see again,
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How on the faltering footsteps of decay
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Youth presses,—ever-gay and beautiful youth
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In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
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Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
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Moulder beneath them. O, there is not lost
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One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
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After the flight of untold centuries,
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The freshness of her far beginning lies
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And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
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Of his arch-enemy Death—yea, seats himself
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Upon the tyrant's throne—the sepulchre,
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And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
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Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
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From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
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There have been holy men who hid themselves
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Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
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Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
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The generation born with them, nor seemed
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Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
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Around them;—and there have been holy men
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Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
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But let me often to these solitudes
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Retire, and in thy presence reassure
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My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
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The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
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And tremble and are still. O God! when thou
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Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
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The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
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With all the waters of the firmament,
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The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
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And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
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Uprises the great deep and throws himself
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Upon the continent, and overwhelms
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Its cities—who forgets not, at the sight
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Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
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His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
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O, from these sterner aspects of thy face
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Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
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Of the mad, unchainèd elements to teach
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Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
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In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
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And to the beautiful order of thy works
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Learn to conform the order of our lives.
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