| |
| ’TWAS a sullen summer day; | |
| Skies were neither dark nor clear, | |
| Heaven in the distance sheer | |
| Over sharp cliff’s sloped away— | |
| Ocean did not yet appear. | 5 |
| |
| Not as yet a white sail shimmer’d, | |
| Not with full expanse divine | |
| Did the great Atlantic shine; | |
| Only very far there glimmer’d | |
| Dimly one long tremulous line. | 10 |
| |
| In the hedge were roses snow’d | |
| Or blush’d o’er by summer morn, | |
| Right and left grew fields of corn, | |
| Stretching greenly from the road— | |
| From the hay a breath was borne. | 15 |
| |
| Not of small sweet wild rose twine, | |
| Not of young corn waving free, | |
| Not of clover fields thought we; | |
| Only to that dim bright line | |
| Looking, cried we, “’Tis the Sea.” | 20 |
| |
| In life’s sullen summer day | |
| Lo! before us dull hills rise, | |
| And above, unlovely skies | |
| Slope off with their bluish grey | |
| Into some far mysteries. | 25 |
| |
| Love’s sweet roses, hope’s young corn, | |
| Green fields whisper’d round and round | |
| By the breezes landward bound | |
| (Yet, ah! scalded too and torn | |
| By the sea winds), there are found. | 30 |
| |
| And at times in life’s dull day, | |
| From the flower, and the sod, | |
| And the hill our feet have trod | |
| To a brightness far away, | |
| Turn we saying, “This is God.” | 35 |
| |
