How sweetly come the holy psalms <br />From saints and martyrs down, <br />The waving of triumphal palms <br />Above the thorny crown <br />The choral praise, the chanted prayers <br />From harps by angels strung, <br />The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, <br />The hymns that Luther sung! <br /> <br />Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, <br />The sounds of earth are heard, <br />As through the open minster floats <br />The song of breeze and bird <br />Not less the wonder of the sky <br />That daisies bloom below; <br />The brook sings on, though loud and high <br />The cloudy organs blow! <br /> <br />And, if the tender ear be jarred <br />That, haply, hears by turns <br />The saintly harp of Olney's bard, <br />The pastoral pipe of Burns, <br />No discord mars His perfect plan <br />Who gave them both a tongue; <br />For he who sings the love of man <br />The love of God hath sung! <br /> <br />To-day be every fault forgiven <br />Of him in whom we joy <br />We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven <br />And leave the earth's alloy. <br />Be ours his music as of spring, <br />His sweetness as of flowers, <br />The songs the bard himself might sing <br />In holier ears than ours. <br /> <br />Sweet airs of love and home, the hum <br />Of household melodies, <br />Come singing, as the robins come <br />To sing in door-yard trees. <br />And, heart to heart, two nations lean, <br />No rival wreaths to twine, <br />But blending in eternal green <br />The holly and the pine!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-memory-of-burns/
