Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Sunday on the Hill-top
By William Channing Gannett (18401923)O
And how I am lifted away
To the peace that passeth knowing,
And the light that is not of day!
Nothing but God and me,
And the spring-time’s resurrection,
Far shinings of the sea,
Hills dreaming of their past;
And all things silently opening,
Opening into the vast!
Seem clinging to all I see,
And things immortal cluster
Around my hended knee.
Secrets it hath to tell;
These rocks—they cry out history,
Could I but listen well.
Of storm and moon-led tide;
The sun finds its east and west therein,
And the stars find room to glide.
Still creeps with the Life Divine,
Where the Holy Spirit loitered
On its way to this face of mine,—
Where angel-lives are led;
And I am the lichen’s circle,
That creeps with tiny tread.
To the sky’s benediction above;
And we all are together lying
On the bosom of Infinite Love.
Of its every sight and sound,
For my heart beats inward rhymings
To the Sabbath that lies around.
Oh, the light that is not of day!
Why seek it afar forever,
When it cannot be lifted away?