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; Silence fell upon the landscape as darkness came and the stars shone out. 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 true is the poet to his impulse towards clarity and the concrete, so unerringly does he select the strong, familiar word with all its meaning clear on the face of it, that it is possible to regard the Song simply as a religious poem--a hymn of adoration to a Supreme Being: 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, Pure religion the poem is, but its implications are broader than any creed. And, define it as we may, it remains suggestive of the most vital current of modern thought. For it takes its stand upon the solid earth, embraces reality and perceives in the material world itself that which is urging joyfully toward some manifestation of spiritual splendour. Thus the poet hears the Song rising from the very stocks and stones: The everlasting pipe and flute Of wind and sea and bird and brute, And lips deaf men imagine mute In wood and stone and clay, The pæan is audible to him, too, from lowly creatures in whom life has not yet grown conscious, from the tiniest forms of being, from the most transient of physical phenomena. The music of a lion strong That shakes a hill a whole night long, A hill as loud as he, The twitter of a mouse among Melodious greenery, The ruby's and the rainbow's song, The nightingale's--all three, The song of life that wells and flows From every leopard, lark and rose And everything that gleams or goes Lack-lustre in the sea. But it is in humanity that the Song attains its fullest and noblest harmony. Out of the stuff of actual human life the spiritual essence is distilled, making the wraiths of a mystical imagination poor and pale by comparison. 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 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,-- _Ford Madox Hueffer_