Not pain nor the sunny wine
Of gladness steepeth my still spirit as
I lift my gaze across the winter meads
Engarmented in stubble robes of brown.
For, as those solitary trees afar
Have reached unbudding boughs
To the dim warmth of the February sun,
And melted on the infinite calm of space,
So I have reached—and am no more distraught
With the quivering pangs of memory's yesterday.
But the boon of blue skies deeper than despair,
Of rests that rise
As tides of sleep,
And care borne on the plumes
Of swan-swift clouds away to the sullen shades
Of quelled snow-storms low-lying in the west,
Have lulled my soul with soft infinitude.
And now ... down sinks the sun,
Until, half-arched above the marge of earth,
It hangs, a golden door,
Through which effulgent Paradise beyond
Burns seeming forth along the path of those
Who, crowned by Death with Life, pass to its portal.
How soon 'tis closed—how soon! The trumpetings
Of seraphs whose gold blasts of light break o'er
Purplescent passing battlements of cloud,
Sound clear ... then comes the dusk!
[WHERE PEACE IS DUTY]
Dimming in sunniness, aerily distant,
Valley and hillside float;
Up to me wavering, softly insistent,
Wanders the wood-brook's note.
Anchored beyond in azure unending
Cloud-sails await wind-tide.
Oh, for the skylands where soon they'll be wending—
And, unabiding, bide.
Where Time aflow thro' infinite spaces
Stays for no throttle of pain!
Where the stars go at eve to their places;
Where silence never shall wane!
Where there's no sense but of beauty's wild sweetness,
Thought but of sweetening beauty!
Where wanting's stilled in unwanting's completeness—
Where peace is duty!