 | The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes |  |
CROSSING THE FORD
Clouds, forests, hills and waters!—and they sleep
As if a spirit pressed their pulses down,—
From the calm bosom of the waveless deep
Up to the mountain with the sunlit crown,
Still as the moss-grown cities of the dead,
Save the dull plashing of the horse's tread.
As if a spirit pressed their pulses down,—
From the calm bosom of the waveless deep
Up to the mountain with the sunlit crown,
Still as the moss-grown cities of the dead,
Save the dull plashing of the horse's tread.
And who are they that stir the slumbering stream?
Nay, curious reader, I can only say
That, to my eyes of ignorance, they seem
Like honest rustics on their homeward way;
There is a village; doubtless thence they came;
There was a christening; and they have a name.
Nay, curious reader, I can only say
That, to my eyes of ignorance, they seem
Like honest rustics on their homeward way;
There is a village; doubtless thence they came;
There was a christening; and they have a name.
They are to us, like many a living form,
The image of a moment, and they pass
Like the last cloud that vanished on the storm,
Like the last shape upon the faithless glass;
By lake, or stream, by valley, field, or hill,
They must have lived; perchance are living still.
The image of a moment, and they pass
Like the last cloud that vanished on the storm,
Like the last shape upon the faithless glass;
By lake, or stream, by valley, field, or hill,
They must have lived; perchance are living still.
| The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes | |