Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
A September Evening on the Banks of the Moshassuck
By Sarah Helen Whitman (1803–1878)A
Serenely still, intensely bright,
Fades on the umbered hills away,
And melts into the coming night.
Again Moshassuck’s silver tide
Reflects each green herb on its side,
Each tasselled wreath and tangling vine
Whose tendrils o’er its margin twine.
Where yesternight with thee I stood,
I trace its devious course once more,
Far winding on through vale and wood.
Now glimmering through yon golden mist,
By the last glinting sunbeams kissed,
Now lost where lengthening shadows fall
From hazel-copse and moss-fringed wall.
The lonely gentian blossoms still,
Still wave the star-flower and the fern
O’er the soft outline of the hill;
While far aloft, where pine-trees throw
Their shade athwart the sunset glow,
Thin vapors cloud the illumined air,
And parting daylight lingers there.
This varied loveliness to see,
And I, though fondly lingering here,
To-night can only think on thee;—
The flowers thy gentle hand caressed
Still lie unwithered on my breast,
And still thy footsteps print the shore
Where thou and I may rove no more.
Of water from some distant dell,
The beetle’s hum, the cricket’s call,
And, far away, that evening bell,—
Again, again those sounds I hear,
But, oh, how desolate and drear
They seem to-night,—how like a knell
The music of that evening bell!
Scarce seen upon yon golden sky,
Hangs o’er the mountain’s purple crest
With one pale planet trembling nigh,—
And beautiful her pearly light
As when we blessed its beams last night,
But thou art on the far blue sea,
And I can only think of thee.