Poems (Prescott)/Over Seas

by Mary Newmarch Prescott

OVER SEAS

Oh, fair the morning breaks and shines,
 With drifting cloud and rosy reach,
Above the peaks of Apennines
 Fairer than words of human speech;
And fair, from Alpine height to height,
 Voicing an awful minor strain,
The torrents in their headlong flight,
 Thread the stars on their silver skein.

And fair the crystal rivers creep,
 Where softly sang the Lorelei,
Where wraith of lord and lady keep,
 Their ghostly state for aye and aye,
Where ruined bowers are overgrown,
 With many a tale of love and tears,
Tendril and blooms of seed-pain blown,
 From the dusty centuries' harvest years.