The Note of Nature

Earth's manifold noises break
Overhead, in the calm,
In unison full, and wake
The note of a psalm.

On the sunny hills, in the vales,
It falls on my ear;
Down the baffling winds it sails,
In the night draweth near.

It sounds like great mountains to me,
A deep monotone--
Like the veiled AEonian sea,
That girdles Time's zone.

The sun and the stars and the moon
Keep time with this note,
The evening and morning and noon,
Things near and remote.

The tides ebb and flow to its beat,
'Tis the seasons' rhyme,--
The harebell and twin-flower sweet
Its undertone chime.

The night-moth stirs to the reed,
And the beetle booms;
The bird and the beast are keyed
To the flower that blooms.

And man to his high service goes
Aswing to his goal,
Like the tides and the stars and the rose,--
Tone, overtone, whole!

I hear it by day and by night,
In storm and in calm,--
A low swelling note from a height,
With the roll of a psalm.