And colored with the heaven's own blue, Beneath that veil of bloom and breath, That living zone 'twixt earth and That openest when the quiet light air. Succeeds the keen and frosty night. There lies my chamber dark and Thou comest not when violets lean For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain If there I meet thy gentle presence not; Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. Yet though thou wearest the glory of the sky, Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, The same fair thoughtful brow, and ́ gentle eye, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same? Will not thy own meek heart demand Shalt thou not teach me, in that me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given? calmer home, The wisdom that I learned so ill in this My name on earth was ever in thy The wisdom which is love-till I Timidly shrinking from the breath Her glory is not of this shadowy state Glory that with the fleeting season dies; But when she entered at the sapphire gate What joy was radiant in celestial eyes! How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung, And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung; And He who, long before, Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore, The Mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat; He who returning, glorious, from the grave, Dragged Death, disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave. Evil with good, in her great Master's Well they have done their office, name. those bright hours, The latest of whose train goes softly Is added now to childhood's merry out days, In the red West. The green blade | And one calm day to those of quiet of the ground Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig Has spread its plaited tissues to the Have filled the air awhile with humming wings, That now are still forever; painted moths Have wandered the blue sky, died again; and The mother-bird hath broken for her brood Their prison shell, or shoved them from the nest, Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves, In woodland cottages with barky walls, [town, In noisome cells of the tumultuous Mothers have clasped with joy the new-born babe, Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long rack of pain, Lie they within my path? Or shall the years Push me, with soft and inoffensive pace, Into the stilly twilight of my age ? Or do the portals of another life |