[There is a language in all Nature’s forms]

There is a language in all Nature’s forms

In all her mystic sounds, which sweetly tells

What ear hath never heard, nor reason known.

The echoes of the wood, the hoary tree

For ages waving its luxurious shade;

Myriads of beings sporting in brief life

Unseen, unknown to man, all tell of Him

Who forms for immortality and bliss;

And to the listening spirit seems to say

“Come thou up hither!” Thither let me climb

And in high converse with the bright Unseen

Mid these vast volumes of His power and love

Learn what Redemption’s happy sons shall share.

Text: Skillington, "The Coltmans of the Newarke at Leicester," p. 24; also Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 4, p. 234. Coltman penned these lines during a visit to a cottage Newtown Linford, just outside of Leicester.