[Poems by Tabb in] Father Tabb :: :: University of Virginia Library

I laid me down in solitude, but not alone:
The night was with me, and the stars above me shone;
The Earth, my mother, pillowed me, and to her breast
I nestled as a weary child that yearns for rest.
The drowsy ripple of a stream that murmured near
With lisping leaves made lullaby to soothe mine ear;
But o'er the mystery of calm my brooding mind
Hung as an eagle motionless upon the wind,
Till stirred with energy of thought, on pinions strong,
Through swift-receding centuries it swept along,
Far out of space and period, where yet of time
No wave had drifted to disturb the depth sublime.
Then, lo! from vastness infinite, one lonely ray
Gleamed, trembling in its solitude, upon the way,
And through the region measureless, a whisper came—
A thrill of hidden majesty that breathed my name:
“Yon beam upon immensity that breathed my name:
From all eternity hath been thy dwelling, Man.
There wast thou, ever intimate, a thought of Him—
The One-Intelligence—that spans the ages dim.
The time, the place, all influence prevailing here,
In pregnant lineament conceived, was imaged there;
For in the mystic harmony of Nature kind,
These kindred elements fulfil a chord designed,
The shadows that encompass thee, the soothing sleep,
The swathing dreams elysian, the silence deep,
All speak one calm Original, whose power divine

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Hath wrought for them a destiny that measures thine;
For all to man are ministrants of heavenly love,
Out-breathings from the Fountain-head of rest above.”