Bending from thy dark dominion
Like a fierce, revengeful king,
Blasting with thy fiery pinion
Every high and holy thing;
Smitten from their mountain prison
Thou hast bid the streams go free,
And the ruin's smoke has risen,
Like a sacrifice to thee!
. . . . .
Monarch of each cloudy form,
Gathered on the blue of heaven,
When the trumpet of the storm
To thy lip of flame is given!
In the wave and in the breeze,
In the shadow and the sun,
God hath many languages,
And thy mighty voice is one!
Here is a poem of Whittier's that will remind every reader of the hymn "The Worship of Nature," which first appeared without a title in the "Tent on the Beach." And yet there is no line in it, and scarcely a phrase, which was used in this last named poem. I find it in the "New England Review," of Hartford, under date of January 24, 1831. It would seem that "The Worship of Nature" was a favorite theme of his, for a still earlier treatment of it I have found in the "Haverhill Gazette" of October 5, 1827, written before the poet was twenty years of age. It is a curious fact that while in the version of 1827 there are a few lines and phrases which were adopted forty years afterward, the lines given here are none of them copied in the final revision of the poem.
THE WORSHIP OF NATURE
"The air
Is glorious with the spirit-march
Of messengers of prayer."
There is a solemn hymn goes up
From Nature to the Lord above,
And offerings from her incense-cup
Are poured in gratitude and love;
And from each flower that lifts its eye
In modest silence in the shade
To the strong woods that kiss the sky
A thankful song of praise is made.
There is no solitude on earth—
"In every leaf there is a tongue"—
In every glen a voice of mirth—
From every hill a hymn is sung;
And every wild and hidden dell,
Where human footsteps never trod,
Is wafting songs of joy, which tell
The praises of their maker—God.
Each mountain gives an altar birth,
And has a shrine to worship given;
Each breeze which rises from the earth
Is loaded with a song of Heaven;
Each wave that leaps along the main
Sends solemn music on the air,
And winds which sweep o'er ocean's plain
Bear off their voice of grateful prayer.