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stood among the chestnuts, its white spire And slender turrets pointing where man's heart Should oftener turn. Up went the wooded cliffs Abruptly beautiful, above its head, Shutting with verdant screen the waters out, That just beyond in deep sequestered vale Wrought out their rocky passage. Clustering roofs And varying sounds of village industry, Swelled from its margin, while the busy loom, Replete with radiant fabrics, told the skill Of the prompt artizan. But all around The solitary dell, where meekly rose That concecrated church, there was no voice Save what still Nature in her worship breathes, And that unspoken lore with which the dead Do commune with the living. There they lay, Each in his grassy tenement, the sire Of many winters, and the noteless babe O'er whose empty cradle, night by night, Sate the poor mother mourning, in her tears Forgetting what a little span of time Did hold her from her darling. And methought, How sweet it were, so near the sacred house Where we had heard of Christ, and taken his yoke, And Sabbath after Sabbath gathered strength To do his will, thus to lie down and rest, Close 'neath the shadow of its peaceful walls;