You who were nursed on the heights, Though your love and your hope and your heart, Though your trust be hurt till it dies: This will you know above other men, In the hills you will find your faith again. You who are brave from the winds, Hill-bred, lover of winds, Though the God whom you know seems dim, This will you know above other men, THE BROOK BY ALFRED TENNYSON I come from haunts of coot and hern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret, By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow I wind about, and in and out, And here and there a foamy flake With many a silvery waterbreak I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slip, I slide, I gloom. I glance, I make the netted sunbeams dance I murmur under moon and stars And out again I curve and flow But I go on forever. From THE DEEP BY GLADYS CROMWELL Where floating shapes of stars and leaves Are free to dwell, And feel the quietude of Life's Eternal spell. I must have peace, and so in some Dark peace I trust, Where thoughts like stars and leafage can Be spun from dust. MY GARDEN BY THOMAS EDWARD BROWN A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! Fringed pool, Fern'd grot―. The veriest school Of peace; and yet the fool Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool? 'Tis very sure God walks in mine. COUPLET BY WILLIAM BLAKE Great things are done when men and mountains meet; These are not done by jostling in the street. VOICES 1 BY LOUIS UNTERMEYER All day with anxious heart and wondering ear That night the country never seemed so still; The trees and grasses spoke without a word 1 From "Challenge" by Louis Untermeyer, by permission of Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc., holders of the copyright. To stars that brushed them with their silver wings. Together with the moon I climbed the hill, And, in the very heart of Silence, heard The speech and music of immortal things. IN ROMNEY MARSH BY JOHN DAVIDSON As I went down to Dymchurch Wall, On knolls where Norman churches stand. And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe, Within the wind a core of sound, A veil of purple vapor flowed And trailed its fringe along the Straits; Masts in the offing wagged their tops; And beads of surge, prolonged the roar. As I came up from Dymchurch Wall, |