Along the eve a fiery arm
Now points us to the waning west,
And all the sorrow, that oppressed
Our hearts once, straight becomes a charm
Of beauty, whose dim spells transform
The Present to the Long-ago,
All grief to joy,—or seeming so,—
We see through thaumaturgic glow.
XVI
Pearl-lilac blent with pearly rose,
The dawn bloomed slowly out of dusk,—
As some huge cactus from its husk
Bursts vast a bloom whose chalice glows
A grotto of transmuted dyes;—
Such wild, auroral light as flows
On ice-peaks from unearthly skies.
Dove-purple shifting into shades
Of opal,—like the tints which dwell
With fire in the ocean-shell,—
The sunset flashed above the glades
Through skies of nacre and of flame;—
Such supernatural light as braids
Dim coral caves, that have no name.
XVII
Draw from thine eyes the veil that hides
Ideal visions; beckonings
Of loveliness, whose soul abides
Beneath the commonplace of things:
No brook within the woodland then
But shows its sparkling god to thee;
Upon the ancient hills no tree
Whose whispering spirit thou shalt not see,
Fairer than children born of men.
Refine thy flesh that never hears
The inner music of all things,—
The deaf flesh,—from thy spirit’s ears,
And list the vaster voice that sings
With pregnant lips unto the Earth:
Mornings, who hymn with gold the sky,
To which the eves with gold reply—
The everlasting heavens that cry
The visible psalms of death and birth.
XVIII
The flowers of the fall I seek:
The purple aster,—like a gauze
Of pearl,—beneath the nodding haws
Or making gay each tangled creek:
The hairy, small herb-Robert, lost,—
Yet seen,—among the weeds which crush
Or crowd it, with its bluish blush;
Its rough, low stalk stung red with frost.
Around the rail-fence, climbing up,
The nightshade hangs rich berries down,—
Clusters of cochineal,—that drown
The flowering bind-weed’s pendant cup:
And where the boggy bottom sets
Its burs as breastworks and as tents,
Like bivouacking regiments,
The cat-tails stack their bayonets.
From amaranth—in tree and flower—
To asphodel-in weed and bloom—
The season swings a magic loom
Of sun and mist from hour to hour:
In its wide warp it weaves the dyes
Of morning’s brilliant blue and gray;
And crimson through the weft of day
Flings the wild woof of evening skies.