Now is the noon of summer’s sweet content
O’er field and hedgerow, valley and high hill;
And hushed the music of the laughing rill
Whose strength is stolen and whose song is spent!
With anxious twitter all the birds lament
The sudden gloom; the air grows strangely still.
Vague murmurs all the valley seem to fill;
The sun is blotted from the firmament.
Hark! tis the diapason of God’s organ rolled
Through all the field of stars; chord follows chord
The march triumphant of our Blessed Lord,
Who rides the sky in chariot of gold;
And then the gloom is rent; with swift accord
The beams, with golden arms, our forms enfold!