Onward then again, for the sunset now has kindled
Higher his grand camp-fire, and shines our tent before!
Crimson clouds are painting the purpled lake’s enamel,
Golden gauzes gleam in the glades along the shore.
Onward, onward, thus do we press upon our journey,
Moved by restless longing, Heaven calling us away;—
Oh, may fading life be illumined like the sunset,
Beaming brighter, brighter, till darkness veils the day!
THE WATERFALL.
When the fir-tree dreams in the drowsy haze
Of the motionless August hour;
When even the eager-leafed aspen droops,
And asleep is the bird in its bower;
Wakeful alone sends the waterfall then
Its mellow, melodious hum,
Wafting a coolness where all is heat,
And music where all is dumb.
In the bloomy May, when the buoyant day
Is breezy and sunny and glad;
When the lithe boughs sweep and the swift brooks leap,
And the birds sing and soar as if mad;
Amid this orchestral blithesomeness,
This pæan of Spring-time’s reign,
The waterfall’s bound fills the scene all round
With its blending, exulting strain.
In its crannies the hair-stemmed columbine nods,
The fern in its sprinkles drips;
And the little black dipper all over the bridge
Of the spanning pine-tree skips.
And the bubbles they toss on the smitten gloss
Of the dashing and flashing pool;
Where the angler scoops up his wreathed hopple-leaf cup,
And the trout poises deep in the cool.
