Thro ' the young morning, mile on mile,
On my swift wheel alone I glide;
See wood and field and hamlet smile,
And all the landscape glorified.

A young man freed from toil at length,
Who labour far from friends and home,
Glad with the joy of youth and strength,
To these sweet solitudes I come.

And on this summer morning calm,
The long week's dust and turmoil done,
Leave the dull town, to drink the balm
Of scented pines and take the sun,

And let the country's peace and rest
Sink on my restless soul, and breed
A kindred quiet in my breast,
And hints of some sufficing creed.

The grey church fills; the cheerful ray,
Soft on the latticed casements falls;
Softly the breath of summer day
Plays spiced with June around the walls.

And quickly thro' the golden leas
The dutiful processions wend,
Then thro' the arching secular trees,
Like those who seek a faithful friend.

The mad chimes haste, then slower come,
Toll gravely, and at last grow dumb,
And thro' the wide doors, faint and dim,
Float the first echoes of the hymn.

Beneath this thick-leaved elm awhile,
Forgetful of the turbid street,
I rest, and let the influence sweet
The fever of my soul beguile.

For it is Sunday everywhere.
The lark a Sabbath carol sings,
To blossomed meads and odorous air,
And murmurous hum of wooing wings.

The dozing teams beside the pool
Whisk their long tails, and, fetlock-deep
In dewy meadow-grasses cool,
Munch lazily, then fall asleep.

The bold pie chatters in the shade,
Well knowing she is safe to-day;
Fearless the moorhens dip and wade,
The bounding conies fearless play.

All breathes a seeming calm and rest;
The glad world sleeps a Sabbath sleep;
While on boon Nature's tranquil breast
God's peace, His careless creatures keep.

Shall I not worship, then, with these,
Old trees and fleeting flowers that blow?
Share the great Mother's joyous ease,
And watch her long-plumed grasses grow,

And let the spirit of old earth
Grow one with mine till both shall fly,
Winged by some new, mysterious birth,
Beyond the confines of the sky?

Here in this long-aisled avenue,
Roofed only by the unbounded blue,
Are liturgies diviner yet
Than those the pitiless years forget.

Here from these blithe, untutored lays
Of chanting birds serene and clear,
A sweeter symphony of praise
Ascends to take the Eternal ear.

Than in yon humble church hard by;
Nay, in the immemorial quires
Of twilight-minsters soaring high,
The worshipper's rapt soul inspires.

But can unaided Nature draw
Our worship? Can her stern decrees,
Triumphant Strength, unbending Law,
Fit praying hands and bended knees?

Shows she, Benign, Almighty, Just,
Who slays the Unit for the Race,
Whom neither Pity moves nor Grace;
Whose cold voice cries, " What must be, must; "

To whom the fairest human Soul,
Tho' with a thousand jewels drest —
Purity, reverence, self-control,
Love, aspiration for the best —

Is less than his who laughs to scorn
All laws but hers, and breaks in twain
Poor hearts, and lives his life in vain —
A vile life, better never born;

Who unregarding, stalks through blood
And suffering, blindly to her end,
Nor shrinks from Ill, nor yearns for Good,
Careless whate'er the Future send;

Who framed the tiger, tooth and claw,
The eagle's rending beak, the snake
With poison-fangs and coils, to take
Fresh victims for the ravening maw?

The very ground on which I lie
Bears rapine on each blade of grass
Stern rapine wings the dragon-fly,
The darting swifts that glance and pass.

And in yon flower-faced, slumbrous pool
Pain wakes and rapine day and night
The same unchanging evil rule
The terror of unpitying Might.

See, a swift trouble cuts the air,
A rush of cruel, arrowy wings,
And yon blithe throstle as she sings,
To death the pouncing talons bear.

And singled from the helpless throng,
Despairing, faint, with failing breath,
Half blind, a coney limps along,
With, close behind, unerring Death.

Nay, not to her I kneel. I hold
Better than this the Atheist's creed,
Which chills the heart with accents cold,
If thus I may supply my need.

Tho' the world teem with wrong and pain,
What matter, if no Power Divine
Framed this rebellious soul of mine,
This soul which drags and loathes its chain?

The great World-System on its course
Goes unregarding, dumb, and blind;
How reach the dull, deaf ear of Force,
Or touch with ruth its careless mind?

Not this I worship. 'Twere to kneel
In a void shrine, whose God had fled;
We only worship when we feel;
We owe no reverence to things dead.

And can this dim Abstraction fill
The hungry heart, the soul that yearns
For ever closer union still
With that far central Life which burns,

And lights, and first did animate
All things that are, and can control
The infinite orbits, small and great,
And Man's immeasurable soul?

For surely, though far off He is,
We hear His voice, not only here,
But in the clamorous city; clear
It speaks through precious sanctities.

How shall a young man cleanse his way,
His sore-tried way, save by the thought,
Too precious for his lips to say,
Which points to some diviner " Ought " ?

The flaring streets allure to sin;
Evil besets his lonely bed;
Heaven seems too straight to enter in,
Too faint the precepts of the dead.

Yet oft the Tempter's voice in vain
Assails him; oft the thought of home
And simple childhood's whiteness come,
And give him strength to strive again;

Or if he fall, yet shall he rise,
And, breaking the dark jails of sense,
See a white radiance light the skies,
And hail recovered Innocence.

Were Conscience dumb, did Nature bind,
Even as the brutes are bound, my mind,
I were content as those to be,
Nor seek invisible Deity.

But hark! through all the House of Life,
The cloistered cell, the clamorous crowd,
Night's cool and calm, Day's dust and strife,
A voice of Godhead pleading loud.

Shall I then kneel with those, and raise
My voice with theirs; who know of old
The Century's deep disease, which slays
Our Faith, and strikes our yearnings cold —

I who have listened while the coarse,
Glib unbeliever marshalled out
His legions of unfaithful Doubt,
And found no other God but Force,

And held the Christian tale in scorn,
The God-like Victim virgin-born,
The atoning pain, the mystic Cross,
The sacred salutary loss?

What care I? God there is, I know,
Who rules the Worlds and bade us be;
But shall He care for things below,
And show His hidden face to me?

Too far away He seems to stand,
Too bright, if present, for our need;
Nor else than through the Faith, His hand
Has given us, know we Him, indeed.

No other gave He. The strong Hours
Have wreaked in vain their age-long Powers,
Unchanged as from His lips it came;
To-day it lives and rules the same

Enough for me, and for my need;
Enough for dear lives dead and gone;
No other Faith is ours, nor Creed,
To speed the labouring ages on

Then since He is, and since no more
Without Him can I live and move,
I join the ranks of Faith and Love,
And rise and enter and adore!