TREPIDATION
This valley now in sun, and now in shade,
Is like the musings of your tender mind,
That pauses, bathed in joy, yet half afraid
To look before, and then to gaze behind.
Along the fragrant meadows slowly steal,
The pensive, drifting shadows, purple blue,
As o'er your heart, that shrinks the while to feel
The kiss of promise wonderful and new.
Look upward, Child, to where across the skies
Float happy clouds, aglow with morning light!
It is their shadow that before you lies
Upon the plain, and see, the clouds are white!
AT MEISSEN
June 29th
Beneath the lime trees in the garden
High above the town,
The scent of whose suspended bloom
Entranced the air with warm perfume
I stood, and watched the river flowing,
Flowing smooth and brown.
The heat of all the summer sunshine
Centred in the skies,
Beneath its spell the city's towers
Grew dreamy, and the climbing flowers
Upon the balconies hung limply
Down, with closing eyes.
Some drowsy pigeons cooed together
On the nearer eaves,
Gnats danced, and one big foolish bee
Grown honey-drunk, bumped into me,
And ere he buzzed a lazy protest
Fell amid the leaves.
A bell began to chime, I watched it
Swinging to and fro,
It made a solemn, pious sound,
While flippant swallows, darting round
To peer within the ancient belfrey
Soared now high, now low.
Time passed, and still I stayed to ponder
Through the afternoon,
Within my brain the golden haze
Wrought magic musings, and my gaze
Bent inward could behold no image
Save the form of June.