dffatflcn in l&intw 



Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty 



The floors of Nature's temple tessellate, 

 What numerous emblems of instructive duty 

 Your forms create 1 



'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that 



swingeth 



And tolls its perfume on the passing air 

 Makes sabbath in the fields and ever ringeth 

 A call to prayer. 



Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column 



Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, 

 But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, 

 Which God hath planned. 



To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, 



Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply; 

 Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder, 

 Its dome the sky. 



There as in solitude and shade I wander 



Through the green aisles, or stretched upon the sod, 

 Awed by the silence, reverently ponder 

 The ways of God. 



Your voiceless lips, O flowers ! are living preachers, 



Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book, 

 Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers 

 In loneliest nook. 

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