Thus he came to be a brother of the river and the wood --
Thus the leaf, the bird, the blossom, grew a gracious sisterhood;
Nature led him to her children, in a space of light divine:
Kneeling down, he said -- "My mother, let me be as one of thine!"
So she took him -- thence she loved him -- lodged him in her home of dreams,
Taught him what the trees were saying, schooled him in the speech of streams.
For her sake he crossed the waters -- loving her, he left the place
Hallowed by his father's ashes, and his human mother's face --
Passed the seas and entered temples domed by skies of deathless beam,
Walled about by hills majestic, stately spires and peaks supreme!
Here he found a larger beauty -- here the lovely lights were new
On the slopes of many flowers, down the gold-green dells of dew.
In the great august cathedral of his holy lady, he
Daily worshipped at her altars, nightly bent the reverent knee --
Heard the hymns of night and morning, learned the psalm of solitudes;
Knew that God was very near him -- felt His presence in the woods!
But the starry angel, Science, from the home of glittering wings,
Came one day and talked to Nature by melodious mountain springs:
"Let thy son be mine," she pleaded; "lend him for a space," she said,
"So that he may earn the laurels I have woven for his head!"
And the lady, Nature, listened; and she took her loyal son
From the banks of moss and myrtle -- led him to the Shining One!
Filled his lordly soul with gladness -- told him of a spacious zone
Eye of man had never looked at, human foot had never known.
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