TO THE LAKES.
With purple glow at even,With crimson waves at dawn,Cool bending blue of heaven,O blue lakes pulsing on;Lone haunts of wilding creatures dead to wrong;Your trance of mystic beautyIs wove into my song.I know no gladder dreamingIn all the haunts of men,I know no silent seemingLike to your shore and fen;No world of restful beauty like your worldOf curvèd shores and waters,In sunlight vapors furled.I pass and repass underYour depths of peaceful blue,You dream your wild, hushed wonderMine aching heart into;And all the care and unrest pass awayLike night’s grey, haunted shadowsAt the red birth of day.You lie in moon-white splendourBeneath the northern sky,Your voices soft and tenderIn dream-worlds fade and die,In whispering beaches, haunted bays and capes,Where mists of dawn and midnightDrift past in spectral shapes.Beside your far north beaches,Comes late the quickening spring;With soft, voluptuous speechesThe summer, lingering,Fans with hot winds your breasts so still and wide,Where June, with trancèd silence,Drifts over shore and tide.Beneath great crags the larches,By some lone, northern bay,Bend, as the strong wind marchesOut of the dull, north day,Horning along the borders of the night,With icèd, chopping watersOut in the shivering light.Here the white winter’s fingersTip with dull fires the dawn,Where the pale morning lingersBy stretches bleak and wan;Kindling the icèd capes with heatless glow,That renders cold and colderLone waters, rocks and snow.Here in the glad September,When all the woods are redAnd gold, and hearts rememberThe long days that are dead;And all the world is mantled in a haze;And the wind, a mad musician,Melodious makes the days;And the nights are still, and slumberHolds all the frosty ground,And the white stars whose numberIn God’s great books are found,Gird with pale flames the spangled, frosty sky;By white, moon-curvèd beachesThe haunted hours go by.
With purple glow at even,With crimson waves at dawn,Cool bending blue of heaven,O blue lakes pulsing on;Lone haunts of wilding creatures dead to wrong;Your trance of mystic beautyIs wove into my song.I know no gladder dreamingIn all the haunts of men,I know no silent seemingLike to your shore and fen;No world of restful beauty like your worldOf curvèd shores and waters,In sunlight vapors furled.I pass and repass underYour depths of peaceful blue,You dream your wild, hushed wonderMine aching heart into;And all the care and unrest pass awayLike night’s grey, haunted shadowsAt the red birth of day.You lie in moon-white splendourBeneath the northern sky,Your voices soft and tenderIn dream-worlds fade and die,In whispering beaches, haunted bays and capes,Where mists of dawn and midnightDrift past in spectral shapes.Beside your far north beaches,Comes late the quickening spring;With soft, voluptuous speechesThe summer, lingering,Fans with hot winds your breasts so still and wide,Where June, with trancèd silence,Drifts over shore and tide.Beneath great crags the larches,By some lone, northern bay,Bend, as the strong wind marchesOut of the dull, north day,Horning along the borders of the night,With icèd, chopping watersOut in the shivering light.Here the white winter’s fingersTip with dull fires the dawn,Where the pale morning lingersBy stretches bleak and wan;Kindling the icèd capes with heatless glow,That renders cold and colderLone waters, rocks and snow.Here in the glad September,When all the woods are redAnd gold, and hearts rememberThe long days that are dead;And all the world is mantled in a haze;And the wind, a mad musician,Melodious makes the days;And the nights are still, and slumberHolds all the frosty ground,And the white stars whose numberIn God’s great books are found,Gird with pale flames the spangled, frosty sky;By white, moon-curvèd beachesThe haunted hours go by.
With purple glow at even,With crimson waves at dawn,Cool bending blue of heaven,O blue lakes pulsing on;Lone haunts of wilding creatures dead to wrong;Your trance of mystic beautyIs wove into my song.
I know no gladder dreamingIn all the haunts of men,I know no silent seemingLike to your shore and fen;No world of restful beauty like your worldOf curvèd shores and waters,In sunlight vapors furled.
I pass and repass underYour depths of peaceful blue,You dream your wild, hushed wonderMine aching heart into;And all the care and unrest pass awayLike night’s grey, haunted shadowsAt the red birth of day.
You lie in moon-white splendourBeneath the northern sky,Your voices soft and tenderIn dream-worlds fade and die,In whispering beaches, haunted bays and capes,Where mists of dawn and midnightDrift past in spectral shapes.
Beside your far north beaches,Comes late the quickening spring;With soft, voluptuous speechesThe summer, lingering,Fans with hot winds your breasts so still and wide,Where June, with trancèd silence,Drifts over shore and tide.
Beneath great crags the larches,By some lone, northern bay,Bend, as the strong wind marchesOut of the dull, north day,Horning along the borders of the night,With icèd, chopping watersOut in the shivering light.
Here the white winter’s fingersTip with dull fires the dawn,Where the pale morning lingersBy stretches bleak and wan;Kindling the icèd capes with heatless glow,That renders cold and colderLone waters, rocks and snow.
Here in the glad September,When all the woods are redAnd gold, and hearts rememberThe long days that are dead;And all the world is mantled in a haze;And the wind, a mad musician,Melodious makes the days;
And the nights are still, and slumberHolds all the frosty ground,And the white stars whose numberIn God’s great books are found,Gird with pale flames the spangled, frosty sky;By white, moon-curvèd beachesThe haunted hours go by.