Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

George Willis Cooke, comp. The Poets of Transcendentalism: An Anthology. 1903.

A Summer Morning Hour with Nature

Augusta Cooper Bristol (1835–1910)

THE NIGHT has gathered up her moonlit fringes,

And curtains gray,

And orient gates, that move on silver hinges,

Let in the day.

The morning sun his golden eye-lash raises

O’er eastern hills;

The happy summer bird, with matin praises

The thicket fills.

And Nature’s dress, with softly tinted roses,

And lilies wrought,

Through all its varied unity discloses

God’s perfect thought.

Great Nature! hand in hand with her I travel

Adown the mead,

And half her precious mysteries unravel,

Her scripture read.

And while the soft wind lifts her tinted pages,

And turns them o’er,

My heart goes back to one in bygone ages

Who loved her lore,

And symbols used of harvest field, and fountain,

And breezy air;

Who sought the sacred silence of the mountain,

For secret prayer.

Oh drop, my soul, the burden that oppresses,

And cares that rule,

That I may prove the whispering wildernesses

Heaven’s vestibule!

For I can hear, despite material warden

And earthly locks,

A still small voice; and know that through His garden

The Father walks.

The fragrant lips of dewy flowers that glisten

Along the sward,

Are whispering to my spirit as I listen,

“It is the Lord.”

And forest monarchs tell by reverent gesture

And solemn sigh,

That the veiled splendor of His awful vesture

Is passing by.

The billows witness Him. No more they darkle,

But leap to lave

The silent marching feet, that leave a sparkle

Along the wave.

And sweet aromas, fresher and intenser,

The gales refine;

The odor floating from the lily’s censer

Is breath divine.

Thus Nature, Heaven’s voice, yields precious witness,

And large reply,

To him who comes to her with inward fitness

Of harmony.