Deep in the Quiet Wood

Deep in the Quiet Wood
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.

From:  Black Nature:  Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, Edited by Camille t. Dungy, ©2009 by the University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA