Since ever the world was fashioned,
Water and air and sod,
A music of divers meanings,
Has flowed from the hand of God.
In valley and gorge and upland,
On stormy mountain height,
He makes him a harp of the forest,
He sweeps the chords with might.
He puts forth his hand to the ocean,
He speaks and the waters flow--
Now in a chorus of thunder,
Now in a cadence low.
He touches the waving flower-bells,
He plays on the woodland streams--
A tender song--like a mother
Sings to her child in dreams.
But the music divinest and dearest,
Since ever the world began,
Is the manifold passionate music
He draws from the heart of man.
--_Temple Bar._
(2132)