The Carrier Dove

A Summer's golden noon had laid 
       The dust and noise of busy toil;
All living things had sought the shade, 
       And ceased their musical turmoil;
For mute Earth to her bosom press'd
Her babbling children full of rest.

The woods were silent as a dream;
       But dreams, with all their pageants rife, 
       Seemed never half so full of Life 
The shrilly gnat had still'd his scream, 
Or with its smooth unceasing stream 
Made sound like very silence seem.
So deep the hush of Nature's jar 
The Earth hung noiseless as a star.

Enamelled foliage flung the sheen 
Of the rich sun-glare from its green, I
n lakes of emerald light, which lay 
       Untrembling where they fell;
The golden, unobstructed ray
So straight pursued its forward way
The frailest leaflet's serrate edge
Lay pictured on the granite ledge;
       It seemed the rock might jar as well.

The still birds on the shadiest boughs,
       Like thoughts just trembling on the tongue, 
       Silent, but full of music, hung;
Ye would have paused to see them rouse, 
And waited for their song, with tips
       Of the white teeth shown and the eye
       Turned to the dumb woods askingly,
As ye would bend to list a friend
Whose fine face spoke before his lips.

The general hush had grown a pain 
And once had begged for sound again, 
       Or ached to see the sleepers nod, 
If in that calm it had not seemed
The Rest was true which Nature dreamed, 
And into Man's heart, thrilling, streamed 
       Deep pulses from the Heart of God!

High Monarch of this royal realm
       By Love's right holding all in fee,—
Beneath the shadow of an elm, 
And on a rock whose giant helm 
       Scowled down its vizor, roofingly, 
To shield his throne,—a Poet bowed;
       Lover as well as Bard I ween;
And though unmoving as the tree
       Which o'er him hold its pliant screon [sic],
And mute as the forsaken cloud