And here and there along the strand,
Where some ambitious wave had strayed,
Rose little monuments of sand
As frail as those by mortals made.
And many a flower was blooming there
In beauty, yet without a name,
Like humble hearts that often bear
The gifts, but not the palm of fame.
The rainbow's tints could never vie
With all the colors that they wore;
While bluer than the bluest sky
The stream flowed on 'tween shore and shore.
And on the height, and down the side
Of either hill that hid the place,
Rose elms in all the stately pride
Of youthful strength and ancient race.
While here and there the trees between —
Bearing the scars of battle-shocks,
And frowning wrathful — might be seen
The moss-veiled faces of the rocks.
And round the rocks crept flowered vines,
And clomb the trees that towered high —
The type of a lofty thought that twines
Around a truth — to touch the sky.
And to that vale, from first of May
Until the last of August went,
Beauty, the exile, came each day
In all her charms, to cast her tent.
'Twas there, one long-gone August day,
I wandered down the valley fair:
The spell has never passed away
That fell upon my spirit there.
The summer sunset glorified
The clouded face of dying day,
Which flung a smile upon the tide
And lilies, ere he passed away.
And o'er the valley's grassy slopes
There fell an evanescent sheen,
That flashed and faded, like the hopes
That haunt us of what might have been.