 | Western windows and other poems |  |
65
THE LOST HORIZON.
I stood at evening in the crimson air:
The trees shook off their dusky twilight glow;
The wind took up old burdens of despair,
And moan'd like Atlas with his world of woe.
The trees shook off their dusky twilight glow;
The wind took up old burdens of despair,
And moan'd like Atlas with his world of woe.
Like the great circle of a bronzed ring,
That clasp'd the vision of the vanish'd day,
I saw the vague horizon vanishing
Around me into darkness, far away.
That clasp'd the vision of the vanish'd day,
I saw the vague horizon vanishing
Around me into darkness, far away.
Then, while the night came fast with cloudy roar,
Lo, all about me, rays of hearths unknown
Sprang from the gloom with light unseen before,
And made a warm horizon of their own.
Lo, all about me, rays of hearths unknown
Sprang from the gloom with light unseen before,
And made a warm horizon of their own.
I sigh'd: “The wanderer in the desert sees
Strange ghosts of summer lands arising, sweet
With restless waters, green with gracious trees
Whose shadows beckon welcome to his feet.
Strange ghosts of summer lands arising, sweet
With restless waters, green with gracious trees
Whose shadows beckon welcome to his feet.
66
“For erst, where now the desert far away
Stretches a wilderness of hopeless sand,
Clasping fair fields and sunburnt harvests lay
The heavenly girdles of a fruitful land.”
Stretches a wilderness of hopeless sand,
Clasping fair fields and sunburnt harvests lay
The heavenly girdles of a fruitful land.”
I thought of a sweet mirage now no more:
Warm windows radiant with a dancing flame—
Dear voices heard within a happy door—
A face that to the darkness, lighted, came.
Warm windows radiant with a dancing flame—
Dear voices heard within a happy door—
A face that to the darkness, lighted, came.
No hearth of mine was waiting, near or far;
No threshold for my coming footstep yearn'd
To touch its slumber; no warm window star,
The tender Venus, to my longing burn'd.
No threshold for my coming footstep yearn'd
To touch its slumber; no warm window star,
The tender Venus, to my longing burn'd.
The darken'd windows slowly lost their fire,
But shimmer'd with the ghostly ember-light:
A wanderer, with old embers of desire,
The lost horizon held me in the night.
But shimmer'd with the ghostly ember-light:
A wanderer, with old embers of desire,
The lost horizon held me in the night.
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