Arrayed in light.—This is beyond thy art.

All thy enthusiasm, all thy boasted skill,

But poorly imitates a forest tree.

But let us leave the painter. Let us turn

To those, who never swept the sounding lyre

Or grasped the pencil,—ardent minds that hold

A deep communion with the winds and waves,

The youthful worshippers at Nature's shrine:

What says the soft voice of the plaintive breeze,

Mournfully sweeping through the forest boughs,

In airy play moved gently by its breath?

To such it hath a language, and it wins

A tender echo from the youthful heart.—

With throbbing bosom Nature's student treads

The sylvan haunts, exultingly leaps forth

[Pg 11]

To hail the coming of the genial spring,

Shedding around from her green lap the buds,

In winter's rugged casket long enshrined,

To form the chaplet of the infant year.—

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