THE voiceless symphony of moor and highland,
The rainbow on the mist,
The white moon-shield above the slumber-island,
The mirror-lake, star-kist,
The life of budding leaf and spray and branches,
The dew upon the sod,
The roar of downward-rushing avalanches
Are eloquent of God.
My eye sweeps far-extended plains of vision
And golden seas of light;
Upon my ear fall cadences elysian,
Like music in the night;
But all the glories to my sense appealing
Can no such raptures win
As come with majesty and joy of healing
From love and light within.
How shall the Universe its own creation,
Life of its life, destroy?
How bring to nothingness of desolation
The soul of its own joy?
The echo of itself, not merely fashioned
Of clay, God's outer part,
But fibre of His being, love-impassioned,
The glory of His heart!
Drive on, then, Winds of God, drive on forever
Across the shoreless sea;
The soul's a boundless deep, exhausted never
By full discovery.
The atmosphere and storms, the roll of ocean,
The paths by planets trod,
Are time-expressions of a Soul's emotion,
Are will and thought of God.
In storm or calm, that soundless ocean sweeping
Is still the sailor's goal;
The destiny of every man is leaping
To birth in his own soul.
