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(Excerpt)
’T IS evening tide, the mottled sky | |
| Is glorious in the sinking sun; | |
| Now Heaven’s serene immensity | |
| Seems flashing forth the words, “Well done!” | |
| And sacred, superhuman hues | 5 |
| Adorn the dim declivity, | |
| And shape the intermingling views | |
| As fair as Eden’s landscapes be. | |
| Our bark, like fate’s strange shuttle through | |
| The azure web, threads onward where | 10 |
| Green islands fleck the liquid blue, | |
| As low clouds fleck the living air. | |
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| Which is an isle, and which can be | |
| A cloud, is half a mystery; | |
| Both are of a supernal growth, | 15 |
| And Sol’s last radiance sets on both | |
| In one fond blush of pensive hues | |
| (They softly flash and interfuse), | |
| As if to beckon us away | |
| Beyond the precincts of decay. | 20 |
| And we would follow him in high | |
| Immeasurable majesty, | |
| By one oblivious plunge to be | |
| From human solitude set free, | |
| But fear the night, so soon to cast | 25 |
| This glory by, may ever last. | |
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| Some isles are rocky bastions old, | |
| Shaped when the ancient ages rolled | |
| Around their thunder-rended forms | |
| Earthquakes and unremembered storms. | 30 |
| But some are exquisitely planned | |
| By Beauty’s spiritual hand | |
| For purposes of peace, and still | |
| They have no part in human ill. | |
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| Each hour a deeper ray emits, | 35 |
| That o’er the wandering water flits, | |
| Like sanguine leaves when they forsake | |
| The lofty branches for the lake; | |
| Such colors tinge the beams that pass | |
| Yon cloud’s ensanguined chrysopras. | 40 |
| Lo, every bird for joy is still | |
| In river, vale, or island hill; | |
| And, past the purple mounts of pine, | |
| Lulling the winds with wands divine, | |
| The imperial monarch of the day | 45 |
| Wheels his irrevocable way | |
| Far off, through clouds whose living flames | |
| Would woo the world to wiser aims; | |
| Sweet seraphs, blushing for the sin | |
| Of some originally kin— | 50 |
| Alas, how beautiful! they seem | |
| Through countless centuries to dream, | |
| Calm as the peace that comes from care, | |
| Pure as a child’s face flushed with prayer, | |
| Soft as a transient velvet rose, | 55 |
| Still as the waves when winds repose, | |
| Lone as this solitude of green, | |
| Dim as those purple depths unseen, | |
| Vast as the visions angels spread | |
| Around a bard’s or prophet’s bed, | 60 |
| As round the seer of Patmos shone | |
| The sea of glass and crystal throne, | |
| The city’s glorious streets, and all | |
| That held his poet soul in thrall. * * * * * | |
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