Friday, March 20, 2015

Poetry Friday: Deep in the Quiet Wood


Winter does, sometimes, leave me bowed down in heart. But, spring -- o lovely spring! -- is here. Even in Nebraska. And I am ready to "come away to the peaceful wood" and be restored.

Deep in the Quiet Wood
by James Weldon Johnson

Are you bowed down in heart?
Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?
Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,
Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,
From out the palpitating solitude
Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?
They are above, around, within you, everywhere.
Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.
They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.
Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale
Until, responsive to the tonic chord,
It touches the diapason of God’s grand cathedral organ,
Filling earth for you with heavenly peace
And holy harmonies.

("Deep in the Quiet Wood" is in the public domain. Thanks to Poets.org for the poetry that daily arrives in my Inbox.

~~~~~

The round up is being hosted today by Reading to the Core

5 comments:

Tabatha said...

Saving this, Karen. Thanks for sharing it. *happy sigh*

Himself said...

Puts one in mind of these thoughts from Wordsworth

For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

Karen Edmisten said...

So glad it left you with a sigh, too, Tabatha. :)
Atticus -- fitting!

Mary Lee said...

Divine is
"Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale
Until, responsive to the tonic chord,"

and divine is
"A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

Thank you both!

Karen Edmisten said...

Thanks, Mary Lee, and agreed! :)