Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SUNDAY ON THE HILL-TOP, by WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUNDAY ON THE HILL-TOP, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Only ten miles from the city
Last Line: When it cannot be lifted away?
Subject(s): Milton, Massachusetts


ONLY ten miles from the city, --
And how I am lifted away
To the peace that passeth knowing,
And the light that is not of day!

All alone on the hill-top!
Nothing but God and me,
And the spring-time's resurrection,
Far shinings of the sea,

The river's laugh in the valley,
Hills dreaming of their past;
And all things silently opening,
Opening into the vast!

Eternities past and future
Seem clinging to all I see,
And things immortal cluster
Around my bended knee.

That pebble -- is older than Adam!
Secrets it hath to tell;
These rocks -- they cry out history,
Could I but listen well.

That pool knows the ocean-feeling
Of storm and moon-led tide;
The sun finds its east and west therein,
And the stars find room to glide.

That lichen's crinkled circle
Still creeps with the Life Divine,
Where the Holy Spirit loitered
On its way to this face of mine, --

On its way to the shining faces
Where angel-lives are led;
And I am the lichen's circle,
That creeps with tiny tread.

I can hear these violets chorus
To the sky's benediction above;
And we all are together lying
On the bosom of Infinite Love.

I -- I am a part of the poem,
Of its every sight and sound,
For my heart beats inward rhymings
To the Sabbath that lies around.

Oh, the peace at the heart of Nature!
Oh, the light that is not of day!
Why seek it afar forever,
When it cannot be lifted away?





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