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I If souls could sing to heaven's high King As blackbirds pipe on earth, How those delicious courts would ring With gusts of lovely mirth! What white-robed throng could lift a song So mellow with righteous glee As this brown bird that all day long Delights my hawthorn tree. Hark! That's the thrush With speckled breast From yon white bush,— Chaunting his best,— Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus! II If earthly dreams be touched with gleams Of Paradisal air, Some wings, perchance, of earth may glance Around our slumbers there; Some breaths of may will drift our way With scents of leaf and loam; Some whistling bird at dawn be heard From those old woods of home. How souls would listen In those high places! What tears would glisten On glorious faces,— Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus! III All, still as frost, the heavenly host Would touch no golden wire, If but one cry of joy went by From this, our greenwood choir: Then, at one flash of daffodils, Where those sweet cries resound, Their heaven would seem the shadowy dream And earth the holy ground; Ay, angels then Would jostle and clamour To hear the wren And the yellow-hammer,— Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus! IV For birds by nature must enjoy The Lord their God for aye; Therefore their music cannot cloy As lutes of angels may. Break, wild-flowers, through the golden floor Where long-faced martyrs sing. Then, let the carolling sky-lark soar And flood their Heaven with Spring. O, what a paean Of joy would shake The empyrean. Awake! Awake!— Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus! V No king or priest shall mar my feast Wherever my soul may range. I have no fear for heaven's good cheer Unless our Master change. But, when death's night is dying away, If I might choose my bliss, My love should say, at break of day, With her first waking kiss:— "Hark! That's the thrush With speckled breast, From yon white bush Chaunting his best,— Te Deum! Te Deum laudamus!" |