How sweetly solemn is the day of rest!
When Nature seems in sympathy to smile
With man, now freed from daily care and toil;
And her eternal sabbath, to his breast
So oft denied admittance, enters there
And soothes him to her own divine repose.
From yonder spire that o'er the foliage shows
Swells the glad anthem on the sunny air
With a faint, rapturous cadence; a light breeze
Croons interruptedly through scattered trees
That shade the greensward decked with wild-flowers rare,
The haunts of butterflies and murmuring bees;
And Nature in the spring-time fresh and fair
Seems worshipping upon her bended knees.