A SONG OF THE WEST.
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Into the glowing West! And lo! the vast and sunburnt plains unfold, An endless, rippling, tideless sea of gold, Our own dear Mother's breast; The gaunt, the silent earth, The bare, brown land without a single tree Or blossom as a home for bird or bee, It lies, endures the dearth, And smiles in spite of thirst And parched and craving lips. This is the best, The better land, my own, my noble West. Into the West! Green, verdant with the strength of endless light, Immortal sunlight, radiant and bright! Where man may work, may rest: This is my paradise, A land of flowers and of singing seas, Of hoary mountain tops and giant trees, Beneath vast arching skies, Skies that are eloquent With sympathy and soft, and deep and true, Gray only when we weary of the blue, Cloudless and all content. Into the West! That mother of great men who sing her praise, Who marvel o'er her miracles and ways, As free and unsuppressed As ocean's roll. Say, O, ye creatures of the further sea, What know ye of her grace and melody, The grandeur of her soul? |
TO ESTHER.
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As Night, before the dawn, In starry splendor, seems to brood Above the world, which waits the morn, Yet worships Night in melancholy mood, As Night, in whom a solemn passion lies, So brood and beam my Esther's midnight eyes. As sunlight on a rose In flashing radiance seems to glow, Warming the tender heart within, To life and love; as early beams bestow Upon that rose a soul which can beguile A hundred hearts, so beams my Esther's smile. As love-birds, in the Spring, Sing on the sylvan boughs at noon, And mating-calls in echoes ring, Or oft at night they whisper to the moon; As stream responds to stream with tender art, So, to mine own, replieth Esther's heart. As sea to distant sea, In grand response to Passion's cry, Declares its own vast mystery, And answers wild entreaties with a sigh; As waves to waves melodiously roll, So sings to me forever—Esther's soul. |