University of Virginia Library

A SABBATH MORNING AT PETTAQUAMSCUTT.

The Sabbath breaks—how heavenly clear!
Is it not always Sabbath here?
Such deep contentment seems to brood
O'er hill and meadow, field and flood.
No floating sound of Sabbath-bell
Comes mingling here with Ocean's swell;
No rattling wheels, no trampling feet,
Wend through the paved and narrow street
To the strange scene where sits vain Pride
With meek Devotion, side by side.
And surely here no temple-bell
Man needs, his quiet thoughts to tell
When he must rest from strife and care,
And own his God in praise and prayer.
For doth not Nature's hymn arise,
Morn, noon, and evening, to the skies?
Is not broad Ocean's face—the calm
Of inland woods—a silent psalm?
Ay, come there not from earth and sea
Voices of choral harmony,
That tell the peopled solitude
How great is God,—how wise,—how good?
In Ocean's murmuring music swells
A chime as of celestial bells;
The birds, at rest or on the wing,
With notes of angel-sweetness sing,
And insect-hum and breeze prolong
The bass of Nature's grateful song.
Is not each day a Sabbath then,
A day of rest for thoughtful men?
No idle Sabbath Nature keeps,
The God of Nature never sleeps;
And in this noontide of the year,
This pensive pause, I seem to hear
God say: “O man! would'st thou be blest,
Contented work is Sabbath rest.”