"Then had thy peace been as a river."—Isa. xlviii. 18.
I sat alone in the pinewood,
And mused with the falling leaves;
And the Autumn breath like a requiem
Hymned low for the garnered sheaves.
And the pensiveness of the Autumn,
Like the ocean rocked to rest,
Found a fitting shell-like murmur
In the heavings of my breast.
For a something came from the stillness,
It had touched me oft before,
Sometimes in the hush of pinewood,
Sometimes on the lonely shore.
It came and it touched my being,
Laid its finger on my brain,
And there alone in the pinewood
I could pray as a child again.
It was not the spell of memory
Cast around me its soothing power,
Nor the magic of thought that held me
Entranced in that silent hour.
The rarest and deepest impressions
Come from fingers, but not our own,
From music unbarred and unmeasured,
From language unuttered, unknown.
They come, the unnamed and the dateless,
They come as the waves of light,
Like the murmuring breath of the pine-woods,
Like the voices of the night.
And they leave their deep impressions
In the tidemarks of the soul,
Those pulses that come as in secret,
And roll as the billows roll.
It may be in yon far region,
Far above the remotest star,
My glowing and growing vision
May find what those pulses are.
May find in the land of the morning,
In the brightness beyond the flood,
That the pensive hush of the woodland
Was a breath of the peace of God.
Till then I will seek the pinewoods,
I will muse with the falling leaves,
And watch the design in symbols
That the silent finger weaves.
And catch from the fleeting river,
And the ocean so vast and broad,
From the Autumn quiet and the pinewoods,
How to know and worship God.
* * * * * * * *
THE "GOLDEN NAILS" SERIES
of
ADDRESSES TO THE YOUNG.
Post 8vo size. Neat Cloth Binding. Price 1s. 6d. each.
"Messrs Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier's 'Golden Nails' Series is one of the happiest of recent enterprises in book-publishing. Every volume has had a good reception, and every new volume increases one's admiration for the enterprise."—Expository Times.
GOLDEN NAILS, and Other Addresses to Children. By the Rev. GEORGE MILLIGAN, B.D.
PLEASANT PLACES. Words to the Young. By the Rev. R. S. DUFF, D.D.