Glory in excelsis! Let the heavens ring; In excelsis Deo! Welcome, new-born King. Gloria in excelsis! Over the sea and land, In excelsis Deo! Chant the anthem grand. Gloria in excelsis! Let us all rejoice! In excelsis Deo! Lift each heart and voice. Gloria in excelsis! Swell the hymn on high; In excelsis Deo! Sound it to the sky. Gloria in excelsis! Sing it sinful earth. In excelsis Deo! For the Saviour's birth. Thus joyful and victoriously, High as the heavens, wide as the earth, THE VOICE IN THE PINES. PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. THE morn is softly beautiful and still, Its light, fair clouds in pencilled gold and gray Pause motionless above the pine-grown hill, Where the pines, tranced as by a wizard's will, Uprise as mute and motionless as they! Yea! mute and moveless; not one flickering spray Flashed into sunlight, nor a gaunt bough stirred; Yet, if wooed hence beneath those pines to stray, We catch a faint, thin murmur far away, A bodiless voice, by grosser ears unheard. 24 What voice is this? What low and solemn tone, Which, though all wings of all the winds seemed furled, Nor even the zephyr's fairy flute is blown, Makes thus forever its mysterious moan From out the whispering pine-tops' shadowy world? Ah! can it be the antique tales are true? Doth some lone Dryad haunt the breezeless air, And wildly breathing all her wild soul through Or can it be that ages since, storm-tossed, And driven far inland from the roaring lea, Some baffled ocean-spirit, worn and lost, Here, through dry summer's dearth and winter's frost, Yearns for the sharp, sweet kisses of the sea? Whate'er the spell, I harken and am dumb, Dream-touched, and musing in the tranquil morn ; All woodland sounds the pheasant's gusty drum, The mock-bird's fugue, the droning insect's humScarce heard for that strange, sorrowful voice forlorn! |