"My Soul Is In the Sky"

 

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. "
       

John Muir - The Yosemite (1912), page 256.

The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls

 

The Splendor Falls

Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1809 - 1892

The splendor falls on castle walls
    And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
    And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear,
    And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
    The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugles; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
    They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
    And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.