Or built us some snug country home
Among the hills; with terraces
Vine-hung and orchared o'er the foam
Of the Ohio, far one sees
Wind crimson in the gloam.
And this! and this!—alone! alone!
To hear the sweep of winter rain,
The missiled sleet's sharp arrows blown;
Dark shadow on the freezing pane,
And on my heart a moan!
DAYS AND DREAMS.
He dreamed of hills so deep with woods
Storm-barriers on the summer sky
Are not more dark, where plunged loud floods
Down rocks of sullen dye.
Flat ways were his where sparsely grew
Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,
Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue:
Ways where the speedwell lifts
Its shy appeal, and spreading far—
The gold, the fallen gold of dawn
Staining each blossom's balanced star—
Hollows of cowslips wan.
Where 'round the feet the lady-smock
And pearl-pale lady-slipper creep;
White butterflies upon them rock
Or seal-brown suck and sleep.
At eve the west shoots crooked fire
Athwart a half-moon leaning low;
While one white, arrowy star throbs higher
In curdled honey-glow.