The muffled syllables that Nature speaks

Fill us with deeper longing for her word;

She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,

She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

A hidden light illumines all our seeing,

An unknown love enchants our solitude.

We feel and know that from the depths of being

Exhales an infinite, a perfect good.

Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow

And be not happy like a naked star,

Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow,

Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.

Our heart strings are too coarse for Nature’s fingers

Deftly to quicken as she pulses on,

And the harsh tremor that among them lingers

Will into sweeter silence die anon.

We catch the broken prelude and suggestion

Of things unuttered, needing to be sung;

We know the burden of them, and their question

Lies heavy on the heart, nor finds a tongue.

Till haply, lightning through the storm of ages,

Our sullen secret flash from sky to sky,

Glowing in some diviner poet’s pages

And swelling into rapture from this sigh.