Classic Poem

A dweller in a hut alone, fed from a dish of wood,
A drinker of the flowing brook, a child of solitude,
A sleeper on a bed of leaves, may find that life is good,
And hear high music on his way that bids his soul rejoice,
If his wise ear has learned to hear—to hear the Wordless Voice.

The Wordless Voice it speaks not in the syllables of men;
'Tis borne along the night wind down the glimmering of the glen;
It talks among the rushes in the fluttering of the fen;
It flows along all valleys where any brook can flow,
Where any stream can catch the gleam of sunlight or of snow.

It speaks beside all pathways that wind beneath all trees,
And speaks from all the chanting shores that circle all the seas,
And from the hills that know no plough, and from the spadeless leas,
It speaks a language, not of men, but plainly understood,
By men who love, below, above, all things and deem them good.

The noises blown about the world beneath the scornful stars,
The cannons of the Captains and the thunder of the wars;
The sound that tears the jangled years and all their music mars,
Cannot drown down the Wordless Voice that from the silence speaks;
'Tis blown to men from every glen and floats from all the peaks.

Dark for the world would be the day that saw that Voice withdrawn;
Then would the day be emptiness, the race of men but spawn;
No twilight peace would fall at night, no hope would come with dawn;
No dreams would haunt the sky line, no fancies throng the glen;
The wretched weight of iron fate would crush the hearts of men.

Up from the deeps of silence the awful mountains rise,
And in the deeps of silence are arched the sacred skies,
And in the peace of silence sleep the eternities;
And from the soul of silence that was ere time began
Comes forth the Voice that bids rejoice and speaks its word to man.