| |
| HOW glorious thy dwelling-place! | |
| How manifold thy beauties are! | |
| I do not reckon time or space,— | |
| I worship thy exceeding grace, | |
| And hasten, as a flying star, | 5 |
| To reach thy splendor from afar. | |
| |
| The first flush of thy morning face | |
| Is dear to me; thy shadowless, | |
| Broad noon that doth all sweets confess; | |
| But fairer is thy even fall, | 10 |
| When seem to cry with airy call | |
| Thy roses in the wilderness. | |
| Thy deserts blithely blossoming, | |
| Decoy me for the love of Spring. | |
| With all thy glare and glitter spent, | 15 |
| Thy quiet dusk so eloquent; | |
| Thy veil of vapors—the caress | |
| Of Zephyrus, right cool and sweet— | |
| I cannot wait to love thee less,— | |
| I cling to thee with full content, | 20 |
| And fall a dreaming at thy feet. | |
| |
| Anon the sudden evening gun | |
| Awakes me to the sinking sun | |
| And golden glories at the Gate. | |
| The full, strong tides, that slowly run, | 25 |
| Their sliding waters modulate | |
| To indolent soft winds that wait | |
| And lift a long web newly spun. | |
| I see the groves of scented bay, | |
| And night is in their fragrant mass; | 30 |
| But tassel-shadows swing and sway, | |
| And spangles flash and fade away | |
| Upon their glimmering leaves of glass,— | |
| And there a fence of rail, quite gray, | |
| With ribs of sunlight in the grass,— | 35 |
| And here a branch full well arrayed | |
| With struggling beams a moment stayed, | |
| Like panting butterflies afraid. | |
| |
| Lo! shadows slipping down the slope | |
| And filling every narrow vale, | 40 |
| The shining waters growing pale,— | |
| The mellow-burning star of Hope | |
| And in the wave its silver trope. | |
| A slender shallop, feather-frail, | |
| A pencil-mast and rocking sail. | 45 |
| The glooms that gather at the Gate; | |
| The somber lines against the sky, | |
| While dizzy gnats about me fly, | |
| And overhead the birds go by, | |
| Dropping a note so crystal clear, | 50 |
| The spirit cannot choose but hear. | |
| The hollow moon, and up between | |
| An oak with yard-long mosses, green | |
| In sunlight, now as dull as crape; | |
| The mountain softened in its shape, | 55 |
| Its perfect symmetry attained— | |
| And swathed in velvet folds, and stained | |
| With dusty purple of the grape. | |
| |
