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Lyrical Poems

By John Stuart Blackie

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84

SABBATH EVENING IN ETTRICK.

How softly on the broad green hill
The golden Eve is sleeping,
While, through the vale below, how still
The cool grey shade is creeping!
The cuckoo's vesper from the wood
Floats sweetly through the shadow;
The stream, as mild as maidenhood,
Is wimpling through the meadow,
This Sabbath eve!
O Thou, who workest peace from strife
By organizing spirit,
Whose eye hath fathomed all the life
Which mortal men inherit,

85

Soothe thou my thought, and in my mind
Rule each distempered motion,
That I may love thy law, and find
Sweet peace with meek devotion,
Each Sabbath eve!