And from the deep empyrian the ear Of holy faith an answering note receives, To still the mourning soul, and dry its tears. Sweet is the Sabbath to a world of care, When spring comes blushing with her buds and flowers; When summer scents the rose, and fills the grain; When autumn crowns her horn, and binds her sheaves, And winter keeps his cold watch on the hills. The wakeful cock from distant farm-yard crows The passing hour—the miller stops his wheel To gather headway for the coming task— And by the turnpike-gate the loaded team, With bending necks, stand panting, while beneath The rustic shade the careless teamster waits— With long-lashed whip, and frock of linsey-wool, And hat of undyed felt cocked o’er his eye— There draining to the dregs his foaming gourd, Stands in his brogans every inch a King. Approach him, sage professor, as you list, With question subtil on a point abstruse: Or with a query as to simple things— Physics or metaphysics, old or new, Law, written or unwritten, good or bad, Logic, domestic or of foreign growth, Knowledge, too deep to know and never known, Or sluggish faith, that takes a teeming age Of miracles, to make one soul believe; Questions political, that sage to sage Have past for centuries on, as truants wild Toss prickly burs, for their unthinking mates To catch, by moonlight, in the autumnal woods; Talk of creation, or the Chinese wall, Wander o’er Athen’s hill or sumac knoll, Drink at Castalia’s fount or Jasper’s Spring, And he is there to answer and confound. Nature’s philosopher! untaught by schools, Who knows, and can explain in one short hour, More than the wide world knew in Plato’s day. — And there the blacksmith by his anvil stands— Well may you mark his tall and robust form, His forehead full, where intellect may dwell, And eye that glances like the flying sparks When the red bar comes dazzling from the forge. All day his hammer works his iron will, The reaper’s sickle and the crooked scythe The ponderous tire that binds the wagon-wheel, And the small rivet of the schoolboy’s toy, Come at his bidding from the metal crude. The patient ox Waits for his iron shoes beside his door, And the gay steed that bounds along the course Neighs merrier when he plates his hoofs with steel; The temple door on his stout hinges turns, And in the vault of Mammon rests secure The treasure guarded by his master-key. Day after day he toils, as seldom toil The slaves that drag their lazy length along— Sleeping at noon that they may dance at night— In the plantations of the sunny South; Yet he unmurmuring bears the laborer’s curse, To share his joys and roam the golden fields, Erect in form and intellect—a man! But when the evening comes with cooling breath, Bringing the hour for labor’s sweet repose, He clears his brow from every mark of toil,