It is not the streamlet's murmur,
Nor the lay of woodland bird,
But a sweeter, subtler music
Than ear has ever heard;

Like the sound of distant singing
On the dreamy waters lone,
When the queenly moon in heaven
Is silently sailing on.

'Tis Nature's mystic message,
Which prophet, bard, and sage
Have fixed in broken snatches
On the bright immortal page.

Only in broken snatches,
And yet that song sublime
Has rhymed with the birth of planets
And rolled with the rhythm of time,

Forever and ever sounding,
In a grand supernal flow,
With a voice of majestic sweetness
And a faint, faint chord of woe.

Ah, Nature, mother Nature,
Would it were mine to tell
The charm of thy wondrous secret
In the words of thy oracle;

That dimly, even though dimly,
Thy glory might shine through me,
As the sun through purpling cloudlets
Streams over the happy sea.

Till all my soul should kindle
And glow with thy sacred fire,
And races and ages should gather
To gaze on the splendid pyre!