The Yellow Book/Volume 8/Wait!
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Wait!
By Frances Nicholson
Deep is the crimson in the west,
And broader, deeper, fuller still
The amber shafts and amethyst
That fret the twilight of the hill.
And wondrously in silver space
The shadowy lake-world glimmers fair,
A magic sunset and the grace
Of fairy woodland, all are here.
About my feet the blue-bells press,
An azure sea of smiling bloom,
And primroses' pale loveliness
Thick clustered in the mossy gloom.
The placid ripples come and go,
No murmur stirs the leaves on high,
The bracken shakes, but who may know
What trembling wild thing flashes by?
Unsolaced in this green repose
My 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 far
In fading crimson, luminous,
Shines cold and chaste the evening star.
Nature is Heaven's Prophet, vast
Her wisdom and her strength, and great
Her teaching could we learn at last,
Obey in silence—work—hope—wait.
And broader, deeper, fuller still
The amber shafts and amethyst
That fret the twilight of the hill.
And wondrously in silver space
The shadowy lake-world glimmers fair,
A magic sunset and the grace
Of fairy woodland, all are here.
About my feet the blue-bells press,
An azure sea of smiling bloom,
And primroses' pale loveliness
Thick clustered in the mossy gloom.
The placid ripples come and go,
No murmur stirs the leaves on high,
The bracken shakes, but who may know
What trembling wild thing flashes by?
Unsolaced in this green repose
My 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 far
In fading crimson, luminous,
Shines cold and chaste the evening star.
Nature is Heaven's Prophet, vast
Her wisdom and her strength, and great
Her teaching could we learn at last,
Obey in silence—work—hope—wait.