Chalkey Hall

How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze     To him who flies     From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,     Till far behind him like a hideous dream     The close dark city lies     Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng     The marble floor     Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din     Of the world's madness let me gather in     My better thoughts once more.     Oh, once again revive, while on my ear     The cry of Gain     And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away,     Ye blessed memories of my early day     Like sere grass wet with rain!     Once more let God's green earth and sunset air     Old feelings waken;     Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,     Oh, let me feel that my good angel still     Hath not his trust forsaken.     And well do time and place befit my mood     Beneath the arms     Of this embracing wood, a good man made     His home, like Abraham resting in the shade     Of Mamre's lonely palms.     Here, rich with autumn gifts of countless years,     The virgin soil     Turned from the share he guided, and in rain     And summer sunshine throve the fruits and grain     Which blessed his honest toil.     Here, from his voyages on the stormy seas,     Weary and worn,     He came to meet his children and to bless     The Giver of all good in thankfulness     And praise for his return.     And here his neighbors gathered in to greet     Their friend again,     Safe from the wave and the destroying gales,     Which reap untimely green Bermuda's vales,     And vex the Carib main.     To hear the good man tell of simple truth,     Sown in an hour     Of weakness in some far-off Indian isle,     From the parched bosom of a barren soil,     Raised up in life and power.     How at those gatherings in Barbadian vales,     A tendering love     Came o'er him, like the gentle rain from heaven,     And words of fitness to his lips were given,     And strength as from above.     How the sad captive listened to the Word,     Until his chain     Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit felt     The healing balm of consolation melt     Upon its life-long pain     How the armed warrior sat him down to hear     Of Peace and Truth,     And the proud ruler and his Creole dame,     Jewelled and gorgeous in her beauty came,     And fair and bright-eyed youth.     Oh, far away beneath New England's sky,     Even when a boy,     Following my plough by Merrimac's green shore,     His simple record I have pondered o'er     With deep and quiet joy.     And hence this scene, in sunset glory warm,     Its woods around,     Its still stream winding on in light and shade,     Its soft, green meadows and its upland glade,     To me is holy ground.     And dearer far than haunts where Genius keeps     His vigils still;     Than that where Avon's son of song is laid,     Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Petrarch's shade,     Or Virgil's laurelled hill.     To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete,     To Juliet's urn,     Fair Arno and Sorrento's orange-grove,     Where Tasso sang, let young Romance and Love     Like brother pilgrims turn.     But here a deeper and serener charm     To all is given;     And blessed memories of the faithful dead     O'er wood and vale and meadow-stream have shed     The holy hues of Heaven