The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill :: :: University of Virginia Library

111

Was there last night a snowstorm?
So thick the orchards stand,
With drift on drift of blossom-flakes
Whitening all the land.

Or have the waves of life that swelled
The green buds, day by day,
Broken at once in clinging foam
And scattered odor-spray?

The winds come drowsy with the breath
Of cherry and of pear,
Sighing their perfume-laden wings
No more of sweet can bear.

Over the garden-gateway
That parts the tufted hedge,
Rimming the idly twinkling bay,
Sleeps the blue mountains' edge.

Yon fleece of clouds in heaven,
So delicate and fair,
Seems a whole league of orchard-bloom
Sailing along the air.

112

Oh, loveliness of nature!
Oh, sordid minds of men!
Without, a world of bloom and balm—
A sour, sad soul within.

O winds that sweep the orchard
With Orient spices sweet,
Why bring ye with that desolate sound
The dead leaves to my feet?

Ah, sweeter were the fragrance
That I to-day have found,
If last year's crumbled leaves of love
Were buried under ground;

And fairer were the shadowed troops
That fleck the distant hill,
If shades of clouds that will not pass
Dimmed not my memory still.

Better than all the beauty
Which cloud or blossom shows
Is the blue sky that arches all
With measureless repose.

And better than the bright blue sky,
To know that far away
Sweep all the silent host of stars
Behind the veil of day.

113

And best to feel that there and here,
About us and above,
Move on the purposes of God
In justice and in love.