And love that keeps the music, fills
With pastoral memories:
All echoing from out the hills,
All droppings from the skies,
All flowings from the wave and wind,
Remembered in their chant, I find.
So teach ye me the wisest part,
My little doves! to move
Along the city ways with heart
Assured by holy love,
And vocal with such songs as own
A fountain to the world unknown.
'Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream—
More hard, in Babel's street!
But if the soulless creatures deem
Their music not unmeet
For sunless walls—let us begin,
Who wear immortal wings within!
To me, fair memories belong
Of scenes that used to bless,
For no regret, but present song,
And lasting thankfulness,
And very soon to break away,
Like types, in purer things than they.
I will have hopes that cannot fade,
For flowers the valley yields!
I will have humble thoughts instead
Of silent, dewy fields!
My spirit and my God shall be
My seaward hill, my boundless sea.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
