How still the morn! no leaf is stirred,

Nor fruited branches sway,

Save now and then, from dewy glen,

A breath of new-mown hay,

Or blossoms of the summertide,

Is wafted up the mountain side.

How softly floats the cuckoo's song

Across the sleeping vale;

In mystic glee the echo free

Gives back the fairy tale.

The stream, in drowsy ecstasy,

Is gurgling onward to the sea.

The lark swims slowly in the blue,

The giant oaks so high,

In sunlit haze their branches raise,

As if to kiss the sky.

We hear above the twittering birds,

The placid lowing of the herds.

The silvery laughter from the lips

Of children at their play;

And in the rill below the mill

The horses paw and neigh;

While youths and maidens plight their vows,

And workmen sing behind the plows.

The noon is here, the sky is clear

And tender as the morn;

The ploughman's blest with perfect rest,

Where noontime shade is born.

The bird has ceased his song to trill;

The lowing of the herd is still.

Unnoticed, a dark speck appears

Above the trees!—on high

At rapid pace and fast increase

It scuds across the sky!

Nor stops to rest o'er sea or lands,

Till o'er this lovely vale it stands

An instant, then, as if possessed

Of some aerial deil,

And hurls them 'gainst the mountain side!—

One sweep of its black wings,

And all is o'er! And as before

The streamlet laughs and sings;

But carries on its sunny tide

Fragments of debris to the wide

And surging sea,—the shattered boughs

Of oaks that proudly grew

Beside the stream,—is it a dream?

No, there's a baby's shoe!

The sunset's crimson rays are shed

Soft o'er the dying and the dead.

While angels hover near and spread

Their dewy shadows o'er

The vale where morn in joy was born—

A blackened pile! But for

The song of one lone whip-poor-will,

Like to the morning, all is still!