_O Earth, I count the praises thou art worth, By thy waves that move aloud, By thy hills against the cloud, By thy valleys warm and green, By the copse’s elms between; By their birds which, like a sprite Scattered, through a strong delight, Into fragments musical, Stir and sing in every bush By thy silver founts that fall, As if to entice the stars at night To thine heart; by grass and rush, And little weeds the children pull, Mistook for flowers!_ _--Oh, beautiful Art thou, Earth, albeit worse Than in heaven is callèd good! Good to us, that we may know Meekly from thy good to go; While the holy, crying Blood, Puts its music kind and low, ’Twixt such ears as are not dull, And thine ancient curse!_ _Praisèd be the mosses soft In thy forest pathways oft, And the thorns, which make us think Of the thornless river-brink, Where the ransomed tread! Praisèd be thy sunny gleams, And the storm, that worketh dreams Of calm unfinishèd. Praisèd be thine active days, And thy night-time’s solemn need, When in God’s dear hook we read ‘No night shall be therein’! Praisèd be thy dwellings warm, By household faggot’s cheerful blaze, Where, to hear of pardoned sin, Pauseth oft the merry din, Save the babe’s upon the arm, Who croweth to the crackling wood. Yea,--and better understood, Praisèd be thy dwellings cold, Hid beneath the churchyard mould, Where the bodies of the saints, Separate from earthly taints, Lie asleep, in blessing bound, Waiting for the trumpet sound To free them into blessing;--none Weeping more beneath the sun, Though dangerous words of human love Be graven very near, above._