Classic Poem

The forest, Lord, is thine;
Thy quickening voice calls forth its buds to light,
Its thousand leaflets shine,
Bathed in thy dews and in thy sunbeams bright.
Thy voice is on the air,
Where breezes murmur through the pathless shades;
Thy universal care,
These awful deserts, as a spell, pervades.
Father! these rocks are thine,
Of thee the everlasting monument,
Since, at thy glance divine,
Earth trembled, and her solid hills were rent.
Thine is the flashing wave,
Poured forth by thee from its rude mountain urn;
And thine yon secret cave,
Where haply gems of orient lustre burn.
I hear the eagle scream;
And not in vain his cry! Amid the wild
Thou hearest. Can I deem
Thou wilt not listen to thy human child?
God of the rock and flood!
In this deep solitude I feel Thee nigh.
Almighty, wise and good,
Turn on thy suppliant child a parent's eye!
Guide through life's vale of fear
My placid current, from defilement free,
Till, seen no longer here,
It finds the ocean of its rest in thee!