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(From Mount Desert)
THE GROUND-PINE flung its carpet on the steep, | |
| As in and out, along the dinted shore | |
| We crept, the surf-beat secrets to explore, | |
| And map the isle for afterthought to keep. | |
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| And when we paused, to brood with talk and pipe | 5 |
| Upon the color of the cliffs and sky, | |
| To watch light glooms of breezes scurry by, | |
| And let each new surprise grow fancy-ripe, | |
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| Between the rocks we found our carpet spread; | |
| From the far softness, where the sky and sea | 10 |
| In act of perfect marriage seemed to be, | |
| The afternoon along the deep was led. | |
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| Against the seaward reefs, from time to time, | |
| Some wave, more bold and eager than its mates, | |
| Runs up, all white with hurrying, and waits, | 15 |
| And clings, as to a rugged verse the rhyme; | |
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| And falling back as slowly as a strain | |
| That sings a mood we fear will slip away, | |
| Our eyes, released, toward each other stray, | |
| And climb, and cling, and act the wave again. | 20 |
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| In lulls of speech the coast begins to croon: | |
| Our thought and glance the far horizon sip; | |
| And leagues of freshness break upon each lip | |
| In tangled drift of mirth and talk and tune. | |
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| Tired lids of distance fall; between, a stripe | 25 |
| Of mornings clear, a memory, remains. | |
| This eve we sit apart; the autumn gains; | |
| The cricket’s reverie must share my pipe. | |
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