Wood Hymn

Broods there some spirit here?
The summer leaves hang silent as a cloud;
And o’er the pools, all still and darkly clear,
The wild wood-hyacinth with awe seems bow’d;
And something of a tender cloistral gloom
Deepens the violet’s bloom.

The very light that streams
Through the dim, dewy veil of foliage round
Comes tremulous with emerald-tinted gleams--
As if it knew the place were holy ground;
And would not startle, with too bright a burst,
Flowers, all divinely nursed.

Wakes there some spirit here?
A swift wind, fraught with change, comes rushing by;
And leaves and waters, in its wild career,
Shed forth sweet voices--each a mystery!
Surely some awful influence must pervade
These depths of trembling shade!

Yes! lightly, softly move!
There is a power, a presence in the woods;
A viewless being that, with life and love,
Informs the reverential solitudes:
The rich air knows it, and the mossy sod--
Thou--thou art here, my God!

And if with awe we tread
The minster-floor, beneath the storied pane,
And, midst the mouldering banners of the dead,
Shall the green, voiceful wild seem less thy fane,
Where thou alone hast built?--where arch and roof
Are of thy living woof?

The silence and the sound,
In the lone places, breathe alike of thee;
The temple-twilight of the gloom profound,
The dew-cup of the frail anemone,
The reed by every wandering whisper thrill’d--
All, all with thee are fill’d!

Oh! purify mine eyes,
More and yet more, by love and lowly thought,
Thy presence, holiest One! to recognise
In these majestic aisles which thou hast wrought
And, midst their sea-like murmurs, teach mine ear
Ever thy voice to hear!

And sanctify my heart
To meet the awful sweetness of that tone
With no faint thrill or self-accusing start,
But a deep joy the heavenly guest to own--
Joy, such as dwelt in Eden’s glorious bowers
Ere sin had dimm’d the flowers.

Let me not know the change
O’er nature thrown by guilt!--the boding sky,
The hollow leaf-sounds ominous and strange,
The weight wherewith the dark tree-shadows lie!
Father! oh! keep my footsteps pure and free,
To walk the woods with thee!