Songs Of Praises
IN a dried old mow, that was once, alas!
A living glory of waving grass,
A cricket made merry one winter's day,
And answered me this, in a wondrous way,
When I cried, half sharply, "Thou poor old thing!
How canst thou sit in the dark and sing,
While for all thy pleasure of youth thou starvest!"
"I'm the voice of praise that came in with the harvest! "
I went away to the silent wood,
And down in the deep, brown solitude,
Where nothing blossomed, and nothing stirred,
Up rose the note of a little bird.
"Why carollest thou in the death of the year,
Where nobody traveleth by to hear"
"I sing to God, though there be no corner,
Praise for the past, and the promise of summer!"
I stopped by the brook that, overglassed
With icy sheathing, seemed prisoned fast;
Yet there whispered up a continual song
From the life underneath that urged along.
"O blind little brook, that canst not know
Whither thou runnest, why chantest so?"
"I don't know what I may find or be;
But I'm praising for this: I am going to see!"
Wide Awake.