Then sleep the seasons, full of might; While slowly swells the pod, And rounds the peach, and in the night The mushroom bursts the sod.
The winter falls: the frozen rut Is bound with silver bars; The white drift heaps against the hut; And night is pierced with stars.
Dream Land
Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep; Awake her not. Led by a single star, She came from very far, To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, For twilight cold and lorn, And water-springs. Thro' sleep, as thro' a veil, She sees the sky look pale, And hears the nightingale, That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest, Shed over brow and breast; Her face is toward the west, The purple land. She cannot see the grain Ripening on hill and plain; She cannot feel the rain Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore Upon a mossy shore, Rest, rest, that shall endure, Till time shall cease;— Sleep that no pain shall wake, Night that no morn shall break, Till joy shall overtake Her perfect peace.