~In Summer Fields~

SOMETIMES, as in the summer fields I walk abroad, there comes to me So strange a sense of mystery, My heart stands still, my feet must stay, I am in such strange company.

I look on high-the vasty deep Of blue outreaches all my mind; And yet I think beyond to find Something more vast-and at my feet The little bryony is twined.

Clouds sailing as to God go by, Earth, sun, and stars are rushing on; And faster than swift time, more strong Than rushing of the worlds, I feel A something Is, of name unknown.

And turning suddenly away, Grown sick and dizzy with the sense Of power, and mine own impotence, I see the gentle cattle feed In dumb unthinking innocence.

The great Unknown above; below, The cawing rooks, the milking-shed; God's awful silence overhead; Below, the muddy pool, the path The thirsty herds of cattle tread.

Sometimes, as in the summer fields I walk abroad, there comes to me So wild a sense of mystery, My senses reel, my reason fails, I am in such strange company.

Yet somewhere, dimly, I can feel The wild confusion dwells in me, And I, in no strange company, Am the lost link 'twixt Him and these, And touch Him through the mystery.

By Christina Catherine Fraser-Tyler (Mrs. Edward Liddell) (b. 1848)