What shall I do to be for ever known? Thy duty ever. This did full many who yet slept unknown Oh! never, never! Think'st thou, perchance, that they remain unknown By angel-trumps in heaven their praise is blown, What shall I do to gain eternal life? The simple dues with which each day is rife ; Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise Will life be fled, While he, who ever acts as conscience cries, FOREST HYMN. BRYANT has caught some inspiration from the peculiar features of the scenery of America. He is not so entirely cosmopolitan as his brethren. He only who has felt the solemn grandeur of the huge primæval forest could have given utterance to this beautiful hymn. THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learn'd And spread the roof above them,-ere he framed The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect Let me, at least, Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, Father! thy hand Hath rear'd these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down All these fair ranks of trees. They in thy sun 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, In the tranquillity that thou dost love, Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly around Passes; and yon clear spring, that 'midst its herbs Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength and grace 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 My heart is awed within me when I think Lo! all grow old and die-but see, again, Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived The generation born with them, nor seem'd Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks Around them; and there have been holy men Who deem'd 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 The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods MIDNIGHT AT SEA. We suspect that few of our readers are acquainted with the Isle of Palms, by JOHN WILSON, who is better known as CHRISTOPHER NORTH of Blackwood's Magazine, where he has published, in the form of prose, as much true poetry as any of his contemporaries. So thoroughly poetical is his temperament, that he cannot write half a dozen sentences without some flash of genius that reveals the poet. Withal, the Isle of Palms, his longest and best poem, has not achieved popularity; but it contains many fine passages, of which the following is a specimen. Ir is the midnight hour :-the beauteous Sea, As if the Ocean's heart were stirr'd With inward life, a sound is heard, Like that of dreamer murmuring in his sleep; Above the happy Deep. The Sea, I ween cannot be fann'd By evening freshness from the land, For the land it is far away; But God hath will'd that the sky-born breeze The mighty Moon she sits above, And from her silent throne looks down, On the waves that lend their gentle breast In gladness for her couch of rest! My spirit sleeps amid the calm The sleep of a new delight; And hopes that she ne'er may wake again, But for ever hang o'er the lovely main And adore the lovely night. Scarce conscious of an earthly frame, She glides away like a lambent flame, And in her bliss she sings; Now touching softly the Ocean's breast, As if she sail'd on wings! Now bold as the brightest star that glows More brightly since at first it rose, Looks down on the far-off flood; And there all breathless and alone, As the sky where she soars were a world of her own, She mocketh the gentle Mighty One As he lies in his quiet mood. "Art thou," she breathes, "the tyrant grim That scoffs at human prayers, Answering with prouder roaring the while, As it rises from some lonely isle, Through groans raised wild, the hopeless hymn Of shipwreck'd mariners? Oh! thou art as harmless as a child Weary with joy and reconciled For sleep to change its play; |