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Child, Lydia Maria Francis, 1802-1880 [1828], The church in the wilderness, from The legendary (Samuel G. Goodrich, Boston) [word count] [eaf043].

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THE VALLEY OF SILENCE. BY WILLIAM CUTTER.

It was a perfect Eden for beauty. The scent of flowers came up
on the gale, the swift stream sparkled like a flow of diamonds in
the sun, and a smile of soft light glistened on every leaf and blade,
as they drank in the life-giving ray. Its significant loveliness was
eloquent to the eye, and the heart; but a strange deep silence reigned
over it all. So perfect was the unearthly hush, you could almost
hear yourself think.

KATAHDIN.

Has thy foot ever trod that silent dell?—
'T is a place for the voiceless thought to swell,
And the eloquent song to go up unspoken,
Like the incense of flowers whose urns are broken;
And the unvailed heart may look in and see,
In that deep, strange silence, its motions free,
And learn how the pure in spirit feel
That unseen Presence to which they kneel.

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No sound goes up from the quivering trees,
When they spread their arms to the welcome breeze.
They wave in the zephyr, they bow to the blast,
But they breathe not a word of the power that passed;
And their leaves come down on the turf and the stream,
With as noiseless a fall as the step of a dream;
And the breath that is bending the grass and the flowers,
Moves o'er them as lightly as evening hours.
The merry bird lights down on that dell,
And hushing his breath, lest the song should swell,
Sits with folded wing, in the balmy shade,
Like a musical thought in the soul unsaid;
And they of strong pinion and loftier flight
Pass over that valley, like clouds in the night—
They move not a wing in that solemn sky,
But sail in a reverent silence by.
The deer in his flight has passed that way,
And felt the deep spell's mysterious sway—
He hears not the rush of the path he cleaves,
Nor his bounding step on the trampled leaves.
The hare goes up on that sunny hill—
And the footsteps of morning are not more still.
And the wild, and the fierce, and the mighty are there—
Unheard in the hush of that slumbering air.
The stream rolls down in that valley serene,
Content in its beautiful flow to be seen;
And its fresh, flowery banks and its pebbly bed
Were never yet told of its fountainhead.
And it still rushes on—but they ask not why;
With its smile of light it is hurrying by;
Still gliding or leaping, unwhispered, unsung,
Like the flow of bright fancies it flashes along.

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Child, Lydia Maria Francis, 1802-1880 [1828], The church in the wilderness, from The legendary (Samuel G. Goodrich, Boston) [word count] [eaf043].