A Summer Day
The dawn laughs out on orient hills And dances with the diamond rills; The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs The silken, beaded gossamers; In the wide valleys, lone and fair, Lyrics are piped from limpid air, And, far above, the pine trees free Voice ancient lore of sky and sea. Come, let us fill our hearts straightway With hope and courage of the day.
Noon, hiving sweets of sun and flower, Has fallen on dreams in wayside bower, Where bees hold honeyed fellowship With the ripe blossom of her lip; All silent are her poppied vales And all her long Arcadian dales, Where idleness is gathered up A magic draught in summer's cup. Come, let us give ourselves to dreams By lisping margins of her streams.
Adown the golden sunset way The evening comes in wimple gray; By burnished shore and silver lake Cool winds of ministration wake; O'er occidental meadows far There shines the light of moon and star, And sweet, low-tinkling music rings About the lips of haunted springs. In quietude of earth and air 'Tis meet we yield our souls to prayer.
A Winter Day
The air is silent save where stirs A bugling breeze among the firs; The virgin world in white array Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day; All heaven blooms rarely in the east Where skies are silvery and fleeced, And o'er the orient hills made glad The morning comes in wonder clad; Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see How beautiful the dawn can be!
Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky; A glistening splendor crowns the woods And bosky, whistling solitudes; In hemlock glen and reedy mere The tang of frost is sharp and clear; Life hath a jollity and zest, A poignancy made manifest; Laughter and courage have their way At noontide of a winter's day.
Faint music rings in wold and dell, The tinkling of a distant bell, Where homestead lights with friendly glow Glimmer across the drifted snow; Beyond a valley dim and far Lit by an occidental star, Tall pines the marge of day beset Like many a slender minaret, Whence priest-like winds on crystal air Summon the reverent world to prayer.
As The Heart Hopes
It is a year dear one, since you afar Went out beyond my yearning mortal sight A wondrous year! perchance in many a star You have sojourned, or basked within the light Of mightier suns; it may be you have trod The glittering pathways of the Pleiades, And through the Milky Way's white mysteries Have walked at will, fire-shod.
You may have gazed in the immortal eyes Of prophets and of martyrs; talked with seers Learned in all the lore of Paradise, The infinite wisdom of eternal years; To you the Sons of Morning may have sung, The impassioned strophes of their matin hymn, For you the choirs of the seraphim Their harpings wild out-flung.
But still I think at eve you come to me For old, delightsome speech of eye and lip, Deeming our mutual converse thus to be Fairer than archangelic comradeship; Dearer our close communings fondly given Than all the rainbow dreams a spirit knows, Sweeter my gathered violets than the rose Upon the hills of heaven.
Can any exquisite, unearthly morn, Silverly breaking o'er a starry plain, Give to your soul the poignant pleasure born Of virgin moon and sunset's lustrous stain When we together watch them ? Oh, apart A hundred universes you may roam, But still I knowI knowyour only home Is here within my heart!
An Autumn Evening
Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow And wake among the harps of leafless trees Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.
The chilly purple air is threaded through With silver from the rising moon afar, And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue In the southwest glimmers a great gold star Above the darkening druid glens of fir Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir.
And so I wander through the shadows still, And look and listen with a rapt delight, Pausing again and yet again at will To drink the elusive beauty of the night, Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup, That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.