Classic Poem

Go out in this dear summertide
And seek to find the joys that bide
In Heaven's gifts, oh heart:
Behold the gardens' lovely hue,
And see how they for me and you
Are decked by fairest art.

The trees in fullest leafage rise,
The earth, to give its dust disguise,
Has put a green dress on.
Narcissus and the tulip-bloom
Far finer vestment do assume
Than silks of Solomon.

The lark soars high into the air,
The little dove departs its lair
And takes the woodland's way.
The sweetly gifted nightingale
Fills hill and mountain, field and dale
With song, and makes them gay.

The hen leads out her little troop,
The stork does build and fill his stoop,
Its young the swallow feeds.
The hasty stag, the agile doe
Are glad, and from their heights do go
A-running through the reeds.

The brooklets rustle in the sand
And o'er them and their banks a band
Of shady myrtles keep.
The meadowlands lie close thereby,
Resounding from the happy cry
Of shepherds and their sheep.

The bee-host back and forth has made
Its trips, thus seeking unafraid
Its noble honey-food.
The goodly vine, with juice grown big,
Gets daily in its weakest sprig
Its strength and force renewed.

The wheat grows large with all its might,
And does both young and old delight:
They sing the bounteousness
Of Him Who soothes so generously
And does such countless property
Upon man's spirit press.

Now I can neither rest, nor will:
Great God's great manufactures thrill
Awake my every sense.
I sing along, when all does sing,
And let what shall to Heaven ring
From out my heart commence.