Of rounded worlds, of space and time,
Of the old flood's subsiding slime,
Of chemic matter, force, and form,

Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm;
The rushing metamorphosis,

Dissolving all that fixture is,

Melts things that be to things that seem,
And solid nature to a dream.
O, listen to the undersong,

The ever old, the ever young;
And, far within those cadent pauses,
The chorus of the ancient Causes!
Delights the dreadful Destiny
To fling his voice into the tree,
And shock thy weak ear with a note
Breathed from the everlasting throat.
In music he repeats the pang
Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang.
O mortal! thy ears are stones;
These echoes are laden with tones
Which only the pure can hear;

Thou canst not catch what they recite
Of Fate and Will, of Want and Right,
Of man to come, of human life,

Of Death, and Fortune, Growth, and Strife."

Once again the pine-tree sung:-
"Speak not thy speech my boughs among;
Put off thy years, wash in the breeze;
My hours are peaceful centuries.

Talk no more with feeble tongue;
No more the fool of space and time,
Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme.
Only thy Americans

Can read thy line, can meet thy glance,
But the runes that I rehearse

Understand the universe;

The least breath my boughs which tossed
Brings again the Pentecost,

To every soul resounding clear
In a voice of solemn cheer,—

Am I not thine? Are not these thine ?'
And they reply, 'For ever mine!'
My branches speak Italian,

English, German, Basque, Castilian,
Mountain speech to Highlanders,
Ocean tongues to islanders,

To Finn, and Lapp, and swart Malay,
To each his bosom-secret say.

"Come learn with me the fatal song Which knits the world in music strong, Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes, Of things with things, of times with times. Primal chimes of sun and shade, Of sound and echo, man and maid, The land reflected in the flood, Body with shadow still pursued. For Nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake,

But it carves the bow of beauty there,

And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. The wood is wiser far than thou;

The wood and wave each other know.

Not unrelated, unaffied,

But to each thought and thing allied,
Is perfect Nature's every part,
Rooted in the mighty Heart.

But thou, poor child! unbound, unrhymed,
Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed?
Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded?
Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded?
Who thee divorced, deceived, and left?
Thee of thy faith who hath bereft,
And torn the ensigns from thy brow,
And sunk the immortal eye so low?
Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender,
Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender

For royal man ;—they thee confess
An exile from the wilderness,-

The hills where health with health agrees,
And the wise soul expels disease.

Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign
By which thy hurt thou may'st divine.
When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff,
Or see the wide shore from thy skiff,
To thee the horizon shall express
But emptiness on emptiness;

There lives no man of Nature's worth
In the circle of the earth;

And to thine eye the vast skies fall,
Dire and satirical,

On clucking hens, and prating fools,
On thieves, on drudges, and on dolls.
And thou shalt say to the Most High,
'Godhead! all this astronomy,
And fate, and practice, and invention,
Strong art, and beautiful pretension
This radiant pomp of sun and star,
Throes that were, and worlds that are,
Behold! were in vain and in vain ;-
It cannot be,-I will look again.
Surely now will the curtain rise,
And earth's fit tenant me surprise ;-
But the curtain doth not rise,
And Nature has miscarried wholly
Into failure, into folly.'

"Alas! thine is the bankruptcy,

Blessed Nature so to see.

Come, lay thee in my soothing shade,
And heal the hurts which sin has made.
I see thee in the crowd alone;

I will be thy companion.

Quit thy friends as the dead in doom,
And build to them a final tomb;
Let the starred shade that nightly falls
Still celebrate their funerals,

And the bell of beetle and of bee

Knell their melodious memory.
Behind thee leave thy merchandise,
Thy churches, and thy charities;
And leave thy peacock wit behind;
Enough for thee the primal mind

That flows in streams, that breathes in wind:
Leave all thy pedant lore apart;

God hid the whole world in thy heart.
Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns,
Gives all to them who all renounce.

The rain comes when the wind calls;
The river knows the way to the sea;
Without a pilot it runs and falls,
Blessing all lands with its charity;
The sea tosses and foams to find
Its way up to the cloud and wind;
The shadow sits close to the flying ball;
The date fails not on the palm-tree tall;
And thou,-go burn thy wormy pages,-
Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages.
Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain
To find what bird had piped the strain ;-
Seek not, and the little eremite
Flies gaily forth and sings in sight.

"" '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 al things fast abide,
And anchored in the tempest ride,
Trenchant time behoves to hurry
All to year 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 for ever 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.
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.
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.
What recks such Traveller if the bowers
Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers,
A bunch of fragrant lilies be,

Or the stars of eternity?

Alike to him the better, the worse,-
The glowing angel, the outcast corse.
Thou metest him by centuries,
And lo! he passes like the breeze;