THE sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields Are hung, as if with golden shields, Bright trophies of the sun! Like a fair sister of the sky, Unruffled doth the blue lake lie, The mountains looking on. And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove, Albeit uninspired by love, By love untaught to ring, May well afford to mortal ear An impulse more profoundly dear Than music of the Spring. For 'that' from turbulence and heat Proceeds, from some uneasy seat In nature's struggling frame, Some region of impatient life: And jealousy, and quivering strife, Therein a portion claim. This, this is holy; -- while I hear These vespers of another year, This hymn of thanks and praise, My spirit seems to mount above The anxieties of human love, And earth's precarious days. But list! -- though winter storms be nigh, Unchecked is that soft harmony: There lives Who can provide For all his creatures; and in Him, Even like the radiant Seraphim, These choristers confide. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER by ANNE KILLIGREW A BIT OF MULL by FREDERICK HENRY HERBERT ADLER THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID by MATTHEW ARNOLD I SHALL BE SATISFIED by MARTIN BEHEMB MAY CELEBRANTS by WILLIAM ROSE BENET DON QUIXOTE by CRAVEN LANGSTROTH BETTS |