I love to take this holy book,
In summer's balmy hours,
To study it beside the brook,
Or by the trees and flowers.
For here I read about the God,
Who made this world so fair,
The skies—the stream—the grassy sod
And bloom, that scents the air.
The birds flit round, and sweetly sing
Of him, who feeds them all,—
Who lifts the towering eagle's wing,
And marks the sparrow's fall.
The violet, from its soft green bed,
To speak his goodness too,
Presents its tender, purple head
Baptized with silvery dew.
And here the busy bee I view,
As she comes swiftly by,
And seems to ask, if she should do
More work, or good than I.
Her waxen house betimes to build
I see her wisely bent;
And then, with bread and honey filled
To have it, still intent.
The bees I find their sweets supplied
In wild Judea's land,
To feed the Baptist, when he cried,
"Heaven's kingdom is at hand."
And when our Saviour, from the grave,
Had asked his friends for meat,
He ate the honey-comb they gave;
And showed his hands and feet.
This volume of his will revealed
I here can read within,
"Behold the lilies of the field—
They neither toil nor spin!"
And yet the king "was not arrayed
In glory, like to them;"
Their Maker's power is so displayed
In flower and leaf and stem.
And he sat on the mountain's side,
Who spake these blessed words,
Before him flowery fields spread wide—
Around were trees and birds.
The fleecy flocks, that sport so free
On hill and valley deep,
I love to watch: and here I see
'T is written, "Feed my sheep."
For thus I seem to keep in view,
And feel how near I am
To that dear friend of children, who
Has named himself THE LAMB.