Page:Poems Proctor.djvu/144

"Ho! tarry! hither turn thy gleaming prow,
And take my soul across the silver sea!"

Or an October sunset in the hills:
The west was banked with clouds; the sun obscured;
'When, suddenly, just on the horizon's verge,
He burst forth in farewell. O wondrous change!
The south was sapphire through a filmy haze;
The north, the clear, pale, lucent green of waves
That break in foam upon a shelving shore;
The dull, gray bars were palace-pillars tall,
Of gorgeous marbles, jasper, porphyry,
And flawless, blushing granite such as floats
From far Syene quarries down the Nile.
And domes of purest gold above them shone,
And towers with many a banner burning high,—
Purple and scarlet on an amber sheen,—
While walls of topaz and great rubies blazed,
As flashed the sun or blew the shifting breeze
Through the wide courts and up the columned aisles.
Nay, 't was no earthly palace, but the Bride,—
The New Jerusalem from God come down,—
And I had but to cross the close-reapt fields,
And pass the brook and gain the mountain's brow,
To swing the gate of pearl and enter in,
Forever done with death and pain and tears!