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The Yellow Book/Volume 8/Wait!

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4574940The Yellow Book — Wait!Henry HarlandFrances Nicholson

Wait!

By Frances Nicholson

Deep is the crimson in the west,And broader, deeper, fuller stillThe amber shafts and amethystThat fret the twilight of the hill.And wondrously in silver spaceThe shadowy lake-world glimmers fair,A magic sunset and the graceOf fairy woodland, all are here.About my feet the blue-bells press,An azure sea of smiling bloom,And primroses' pale lovelinessThick clustered in the mossy gloom.The placid ripples come and go,No murmur stirs the leaves on high,The bracken shakes, but who may knowWhat trembling wild thing flashes by?Unsolaced in this green reposeMy labouring soul? and doubt-distressed?Oh! gates of the west roll back, disclose,Answer with splendour manifest. Answer, and end the long unrest,The strain to see, and touch, and know,The sad desire, the fevered quest,The hopes that die, the tears that flow.The green leaves listen and are dumb,The wild-fowl in the rushes sleeps,The placid ripples go and come,And the long shadow onward creeps.A silence, half mysterious,Half tender, wraps the dusk, and farIn fading crimson, luminous,Shines cold and chaste the evening star.Nature is Heaven's Prophet, vastHer wisdom and her strength, and greatHer teaching could we learn at last,Obey in silence—work—hope—wait.