You watched ride high above Damascus’ towers,
In purer light or richer splendor glowed
Than any one
Of these most lovely golden dawns of ours
That wake the birds along the river road.
The green ravines are newly fringed with fern;
From out the brake a robin red-breast calls;
The stream repeats, at rippling intervals,
“Can you not now return?”
But what avail in striving to compare