I climbed a hill as light fell short, And rooks came home in scramble sort, And filled the trees and flapped and fought And sang themselves to sleep; An owl from nowhere with no sound Swung by and soon was nowhere found, I heard him calling half-way round, Holloing loud and deep; A pair of stars, faint pins of light, Then many a star, sailed into sight, And all the stars, the flower of night, Were round me at a leap; To tell how still the valleys lay I heard a watchdog miles away ... And bells of distant sheep. I heard no more of bird or bell, The mastiff in a slumber fell, I stared into the sky, As wondering men have always done Since beauty and the stars were one, Though none so hard as I. It seemed, so still the valleys were, As if the whole world knelt at prayer, Save me and me alone; So pure and wide that silence was I feared to bend a blade of grass, And there I stood like stone. There, sharp and sudden, there I heard-- 'Ah! some wild lovesick singing bird Woke singing in the trees?' 'The nightingale and babble-wren Were in the English greenwood then, And you heard one of these?' The babble-wren and nightingale Sang in the Abyssinian vale That season of the year! Yet, true enough, I heard them plain, I heard them both again, again, As sharp and sweet and clear As if the Abyssinian tree Had thrust a bough across the sea, Had thrust a bough across to me With music for my ear! I heard them both, and oh! I heard The song of every singing bird That sings beneath the sky, And with the song of lark and wren The song of mountains, moths and men And seas and rainbows vie! I heard the universal choir The Sons of Light exalt their Sire With universal song, Earth's lowliest and loudest notes, Her million times ten million throats Exalt Him loud and long, And lips and lungs and tongues of Grace From every part and every place Within the shining of His face, The universal throng. I heard the hymn of being sound From every well of honour found In human sense and soul: The song of poets when they write The testament of Beautysprite Upon a flying scroll, The song of painters when they take A burning brush for Beauty's sake And limn her features whole-- The song of men divinely wise Who look and see in starry skies Not stars so much as robins' eyes, And when these pale away Hear flocks of shiny pleiades Among the plums and apple trees Sing in the summer day-- The song of all both high and low To some blest vision true, The song of beggars when they throw The crust of pity all men owe To hungry sparrows in the snow, Old beggars hungry too-- The song of kings of kingdoms when They rise above their fortune men, And crown themselves anew,-- The song of courage, heart and will And gladness in a fight, Of men who face a hopeless hill With sparking and delight, The bells and bells of song that ring Round banners of a cause or king From armies bleeding white--