The sun was sinking when his watch begun,
Now far beneath him rolls the unwearied sun;
The moon, whose glory woke a fainter day,
When on the hill-tops died the gold away,
Now from mid-heaven, with face serene, looks down
On lake and stream and Elva’s forest brown.
He leaned against a tree, whose trunk around
With hoary moss and ivy green was bound,
His flashing eyes were turned upon a scroll
Whose pictured words drew echoes from his soul: