CALM

Beautiful-bosomed, O night, in thy noon Move with majesty onward! bearing, as lightly As a singer may bear the notes of an exquisite tune, The stars and the moon

Through the clerestories high of the heaven, the firmament's halls; Under whose sapphirine walls, June, hesperian June, Robed in divinity wanders. Daily and nightly

The turquoise touch of her robe, that the violets star, The silvery fall of her feet, that lilies are, Fill the land with languorous light and perfume.— Is it the melody mute of burgeoning leaf and of bloom?

The music of Nature, that silently shapes in the gloom Immaterial hosts Of spirits that have the flowers and leaves in their keep, That I hear, that I hear?

Invisible ghosts,— Who whisper in leaves and glimmer in blossoms and hover In color and fragrance and loveliness, breathed from the deep World-soul of the mother,

Nature;— who, over and over, Both sweetheart and lover, Goes singing her songs from one sweet month to the other,— That appear, that appear?

In forest and field, on hill-land and lea, As crystallized harmony, Materialized melody, An uttered essence peopling far and near

The hyaline atmosphere?... Behold how it sprouts from the grass and blooms from flower and tree! In waves of diaphanous moonlight and mist, In fugue upon fugue of gold and of amethyst,

Around me, above me it spirals; now slower, now faster, Like symphonies born of the thought of a musical master.— — O music of Earth! O God who the music inspired! Let me breathe of the life of thy breath!

And so be fulfilled and attired In resurrection, triumphant o'er time and o'er death!