University of Virginia Library

A SUMMER MORNING SCENE.

'Twas a bright morn in June, when the leaf and the flower
Were freshest and fairest, I spent a brief hour
On the hill side and gazed on the valleys around,
When all nature was hushed in a slumber profound.
So still and so calm was the air where I stood,
That no murmur was heard through the pines in the wood.
The red fox had slunk to his covert afar,
Beneath the faint light of the last waning star;
The birds were all mute, and the cricket's shrill cry;
And the grasshopper's chirp were unheard in the sky;
And the humble-bee hung with the dew on its wing,
To the bloom of the thistle that bent o'er the spring;
And no sound could I hear, as I gazed far away.
But the fountains amid the young blossoms at play.
O 'twas sweet in that hour of unbroken repose,
When the air was all fresh with the scent of the rose;
To gaze on the vales that around me were spread,
So still that they seemed but the home of the dead;
And to mark as the curtains of night were withdrawn,
And glory and beauty broke forth with the dawn;
Earth's numberless beings from slumber arise,
And to hear their glad voices ascend to the skies.
Then the winds woke apace, and the song of the bird
And the grey squirrel's chirp in the thicket were heard;
And the low of the kine, and the bleat of the flock,
As they spread from the fold over hillock and rock.
The yeoman went singing afield to his plow,
The waterfowl swam on the river below,
The swallows came darting athwart the blue sky,
And a thousand gay insects glanced merrily by;
And all things seemed joyous and loveley and new,
As they broke from their slumbers and rose to my view;
As if the Creator's all life-giving breath,
Had passed through the vale of the shadow of death;
And awakened anew to an innocent birth,
These beings of beauty to people the earth.
And I thought of the morn when the trumpet of God,
Shall awake all the sleepers beneath the green sod,
And souls be united, that long, long ago,
Were parted in anguish and bitterest woe.