THE HEAVENS.
127
Through pleasant woodlands and by singing streams.
Are not the heavens God's pastures of delight,
Whither He leads us when our tasks are done?
Give placid, brooding skies to Time and Love,—
Fond human love that nestles in the vale
And shuns the wide horizon and the storm;
But, for Immortal Birth, a sky like this,
Upheaved, tumultuous, with a rushing wind
Swept from the farthest circle of the stars
To bear the rapt, exultant soul away!
Are not the heavens God's pastures of delight,
Whither He leads us when our tasks are done?
Give placid, brooding skies to Time and Love,—
Fond human love that nestles in the vale
And shuns the wide horizon and the storm;
But, for Immortal Birth, a sky like this,
Upheaved, tumultuous, with a rushing wind
Swept from the farthest circle of the stars
To bear the rapt, exultant soul away!
Or such an evening as I saw in June:
All day the rain had fallen, but the clouds
Lifted at twilight, and to eastward rolled;
And, from wet woods and fields, a silver mist
Rose silently, half zenith high, and robed
The near horizon, mountains, meadows, groves,
In the soft lustre of its filmy veil,
So light, so thin, that through its shroud the pines
Loomed darkly, like the ghost of Loda seen
By moonlight on the hills of Inistore.
When, lo! above the still expanse, a cloud
Lit by the beams of the departed sun'!
A ship of flame with crimson sails and masts
All fiery bright; God's glowing galleon,
Celestial-freighted for some Eden-shore.
And ravished, breathless, fain I would have cried,
All day the rain had fallen, but the clouds
Lifted at twilight, and to eastward rolled;
And, from wet woods and fields, a silver mist
Rose silently, half zenith high, and robed
The near horizon, mountains, meadows, groves,
In the soft lustre of its filmy veil,
So light, so thin, that through its shroud the pines
Loomed darkly, like the ghost of Loda seen
By moonlight on the hills of Inistore.
When, lo! above the still expanse, a cloud
Lit by the beams of the departed sun'!
A ship of flame with crimson sails and masts
All fiery bright; God's glowing galleon,
Celestial-freighted for some Eden-shore.
And ravished, breathless, fain I would have cried,
