SEPTEMBER 1819
THE sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields Are hung, as if with golden shields, Bright trophies of the sun! Like a fair sister of the sky, Unruffled doth the blue lake lie, The mountains looking on. And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove, Albeit uninspired by love, By love untaught to ring, May well afford to mortal ear 10 An impulse more profoundly dear Than music of the Spring. For ‘that’ from turbulence and heat Proceeds, from some uneasy seat In nature’s struggling frame, Some region of impatient life: And jealousy, and quivering strife, Therein a portion claim. This, this is holy;–while I hear These vespers of another year, 20 This hymn of thanks and praise, My spirit seems to mount above The anxieties of human love, And earth’s precarious days. But list!–though winter storms be nigh, Unchecked is that soft harmony: There lives Who can provide For all his creatures; and in Him, Even like the radiant Seraphim, These choristers confide. 30