Storing Our Souls with Beauty

Apropos of the blog I posted earlier today, in which I wrote of finding hope for healing in photos of flowers that offered the promise of spring, my husband sent me a poem he found online about very much the same sentiments.  And once again, I searched my blogposts of the past 11 years, finding images similar to those this poet describes in her poem.  Here's the poem:

THE DAYS TO COME
by Medora C. Addison (American, born 1891)

Now shall I store my soul with silent beauty,
     Beauty of drifting clouds and mountain heights,
Beauty of sun-splashed hills and shadowed forests,
     Beauty of dawn and dusk and star-swept nights. 

Now shall I fill my heart with quiet music,
    Song of the wind across the pine-clad hill,
Song of the rain and, fairer than all music,
    Call of the thrush when twilight woods are still. 

So shall the days to come be filled with beauty,
     Bright with the promise caught from eastern skies;
So shall I see the stars when night is darkest,
     Still hear the thrush’s song when music dies. 

How happy I am that I have stored not only "my soul with silent beauty," but also my blog with many of the same images the poem presents.

There were photos of "drifting clouds and mountain heights":

Others of "sun-splashed hills" . . .

. . . and of  "shadowed forests":

Many of my photos represent the "Beauty of dawn":

As well as the beauty of "dusk":

But only one could I find that came close to depicting a "star-swept night", even though the "star" was instead the  shining planet Venus:

It amazed me how often I ventured out even on rain-soaked days, for I found many photos through which I could almost hear the "Song of the rain":

I am sorry I can't post here in any way that would thrill the hearer the "quiet music" that I myself have thrilled to hear in these very settings, the "Song of the wind across the pine-clad hill" or the "Call of the thrush's song when twilight woods are still."  But every time I look at these photos I hear all that music and more: the loon's haunting calls across Adirondack lakes, or the sweet lilting pipings and trills of the Winter Wren, or the quiet lapping of wavelets on the stony shore of Moreau Lake, or the splashing and tinkling of a mountain stream, or the comical conversational cackles of ravens on cliffs above the Hudson River, or so many more.  And I haven't even mentioned the wonderful scents and tastes these places hold for me and which their photos evoke.

What a storehouse of joy my blog has become for me, recording in nearly 2,000 posts so much evidence of all the wondrous natural beauty that surrounds me!  I do so hope it has offered some similar joy to those who read it.