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Poems

By Frederick William Faber: Third edition
  

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By a steep winding vale I left
A terrace in a mountain cleft.
Old pines with ruddy boles were there,
Half-gilded by the sunny air.
The holm oaks, planes, and service-trees
Hung motionless without a breeze.
No vernal gale or summer stir
Bent the green cones upon the fir.
No water, tinkling as it fell,
Taught the young birds their earliest sound,
Or in its murmuring way unbound
The sylvan languor of the dell.
All through the shaggy gorge were seen
Tree-tops and folds of various green;
And noon with pleasant silence there
Loaded the misty drooping air,
And, birdlike, seemed herself to brood
O'er a vast couch of glorious wood.
I chose a moss and wild-flower bed
Where many-fingered cedars shed
All down the slope dark flakes of shade,
And grateful dusky sunlight made.

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Ever before my half-closed eyes
The sundered mountain-peaks did rise;
And though I knew each field and rill
That lay beyond that mighty hill,
Yet still the wondrous cleft did seem
A pass whereby a mourner's dream
To other worlds might travel,
And somewhat of his brother's state,
In dreadest twilight separate,
Might sleep perchance unravel.