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.
Not 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.

About this poem
"Deep in the Quiet Wood" was published in James Weldon Johnson's book "Fifty Years & Other Poems" (The Cornhill Company, 1917).

About James Weldon Johnson
James Weldon Johnson was born on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Fla. In 1920 he became the national organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Johnson's published works include "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" (1912) and "Self-Determining Haiti" (1920). He died on June 26, 1938.

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This poem is in the public domain. Distributed by King Features Syndicate