Oft a deep, unspoken anguish
In the secret soul is stirred,
And the wounded heart, though yearning
For a kindly, loving word,
Opens not its sacred portal,
For the arts of friendly healing—
Only God is told the sorrow,
Through a mute-lipped, sad appealing.
“I am with you”—seems responded,
From the hush of Nature’s bowers,
And the spirit feels God nearer
Where He’s strewn the earth with flowers;
Nature’s language, rich with blessing,
For its unobtrusive words,
Speaks through softly murm’ring streamlets,
And the low, sweet trill of birds.
E’en a tiny, bruised allyssum,
Or a trampled mignonette,
Teach the heart, by sweet example,
That ’tis better to forget.
Like the touch of seraph pinions,
Or a faintly whispered hope,
Is the charm of perfume floating
From a hidden heliotrope.
Ah! there’s soothing for the spirit
Where the humid coolness lingers,
Where the breezes touch us gently
With their dainty, fairy fingers,—
Where the woodland nymphs are gliding,
Noiseless, o’er the mosses bright,
Spreading Sylva’s vestal altar
With a cloth of violets white.
All these tiny, fragrant flowers
Speak to us in tender tone,
Gently winning us from sorrow
With a language all their own;
Little beauties, sent in blessing,—
In our pathway angels strew them,
That we hear, when joy is shrouded,
Loving voices whisper through them.