Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Compass-plant (Silphium laciniatum)
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from the meadow,
See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as the magnet;
This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has planted
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller’s journey.
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert,
Such in the soul of man is faith.
Longfellow—Evangeline. Pt. II. St. 4. L. 140.