NATURE AND THE CHILD

For many bessings I to God upraise
A thankful heart; the life He gives is fair
And sweet and good, since He is everywhere,
Still with me even in the darkest ways.
But most I thank Him for my earliest days,
Passed in the fields and in the open air,
With flocks and birds and flowers, free from all care,
And glad as brook that through a meadow strays.
O balmy air, O orchards white with bloom,
O waving fields of ever-varying green,
O deep, mysterious woods, whose leafy gloom
Invites to pensive dreams of worlds unseen,
To thoughts as solemn as the silent tomb,
No power from you my heart can ever wean!