A Sunday-calm, ornate, profound,

Enchanting sense, subduing sound,

Enjoins its ritual to prepare;

The day is bland with unctuous prayer

That leaps to heaven at a bound.

And bells ope throats in mellow round

Of sweet antiphonal resound,

And virtue glistens everywhere—

A Sunday-calm.

Draw breath! Away to virgin ground!

But where the fields are flower-crowned

The cattle with self-conscious stare

Chide my undeprecative air,—

Good heavens! Can they too have found

A Sunday-calm?