ng rills,
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise, whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,
In mingled clouds to him whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to him;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.

* * * * *

Bleat out afresh, ye hills! ye mossy rocks,
Retain the sound; the broad responsive low,
Ye valleys raise; for the great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come.

* * * * *

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear,
At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to heaven.

* * * * *

Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me,
Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where he vital breathes there must be joy.

* * * * *

The worship of intellectual power in laws and inventions is the main
delight of the song; not the living presence of creative love, which
never sings its own praises, but spends itself in giving. Still, although
there has passed away a glory from the world of song, although the
fervour of childlike worship has vanished for a season, there are signs
in these verses of a new dawn of devotion. Even the exclusive and
therefore blind worship of science will, when it has turned the coil of
the ascending spiral, result in a new song to "him that made heaven and
earth and the sea and the fountains of waters." But first, for a long
time, the worship of power will go on. There is one sonnet by Kirke
White, eighty-five years youn