JULY.

Now is the noon of summer’s sweet content O’er field and hedgerow, valley and high hill; And hushed the music of the laughing rill Whose strength is stolen and whose song is spent! With anxious twitter all the birds lament The sudden gloom; the air grows strangely still. Vague murmurs all the valley seem to fill; The sun is blotted from the firmament. Hark! tis the diapason of God’s organ rolled Through all the field of stars; chord follows chord The march triumphant of our Blessed Lord, Who rides the sky in chariot of gold; And then the gloom is rent; with swift accord The beams, with golden arms, our forms enfold!