Classic Poem

The hour for praise has come again,
Within these arches, tall and dim,
And all the forest is a fane
Where Nature sings her vesper hymn,
With birds and insects and the breeze
To voice her glad solemnities.

Here, at the ending of the day,
The Locust folds her leaves to pray;
The bees that cheered her all day long
Fly homeward with an even-song:
The Oak is at his orisons:
The stream with whispered chanting runs:
The Lady Birch and Alder trees
Do tell their beads like veilèd nuns,
With hanging vines for rosaries:
The flowers with meek petition rise
And lift to Heaven appealing eyes;

Sweet eyes, all dimmed with holy tears
To-morrow's sun will kiss away:
Thus the sad spirit, worn with fears,
When darkness shrouds the glimmering day,
Succumbs to weariness and pain,
To smile when sunlight comes again.

Now stirs the blast, and from each tree
Responds a murmured litany:
Then—silence: till the reverent hush
Is broken by the tranquil thrush,—
Fit preacher for these solitudes,
Benignant hermit of the woods.

“Peace!” speaks the lofty bird. “Be still.
Learn loving, and the Maker's will.”
His pulpit is an ancient tree,
Draped with large creepers decently;
From which he cries his parting word:
“O holy, holy, holy, Lord!”

Follows with tones of yearning love,
The benediction of the dove:
After,—the service comes to end,
And on my homeward way I wend

As one who walks within the Veil,
Or sees, bright-orbed, the Holy Grail,
And feels, as 't were, an aureole
Of chastened rapture crown his soul.