THE ANGELUS OF PLYMOUTH WOODS.
I know a place ’mid desert wilds,
From city cares apart,
Where sheening ponds, like sleeping swans,
Dream on the world’s warm heart;
Its vesper-bells are calling, and ever calling me,
To worshipful devotion, from every leafy tree.
And none hath caught the music
Of praise and prayer divine,
More distant from life’s bitter hour
Than murmurs in the pine;
Nor acolyte of incense, nor robed Te Deum choirs,
E’er awed my soul with mysteries, so free from vain desires,
As cherubim and seraphim,
Who stay their phantom flight,
Amid the choirs of God’s green spires,
To tune their harps of light,
When evening’s drowsy whisper, the new moon in the west,
Broods Nature’s benediction, where lapwings float at rest.