From mystic latitudes
Of earth and sky, at such an hour as this,
The breath of Love is blown across our thought.
In the silence and serenity of night,
Voices that in the din of day are mute
Bring to us messages of peace and joy,
In softer syllables than sweetest song.
At such an hour as this God's man asserts
His heritage of immortality;
The cares of life dissolve their gruesome shapes,
And sorrows vanish into nothingness.
What is this holy touch? We cannot look
To nature for our spiritual parentage,
Or slightest proofs of kinship to ourselves.
Nature hath no analogies or laws
To solve the mysteries of spiritual life;
Therefore, our origin and destiny
As spiritual beings have no prototype
Or counterpart in matter, and man's birth
Cannot be traced to dust or protoplasm.
Whence, then, the vast and subtle influences
Which reach to man from earth and sky and star?
From colors of the morning, noon, and night;
From dancing bubbles on the merry brooks;
From odorous winds that touch the harp-like trees;
From noisy cataracts and singing birds,
From sailing clouds and shining thunderbolts,
From lonely mountains and remote horizons?
All sights and sounds in nature,—when we drop
Our burden of prosaic cares behind us,—
Reveal us to ourselves, and we expand
To our true stature as divinely formed,
And man found capable of thought sublime
Thus lifted to his highest,—to him are borne
The perfumes from diviner blossomings,
The sacred thrill of some intenser life.
