 | The Poet and Nature and The Morning Road |  |
240
FINIS.
Broad, silver discs the morning-glory drops
Where, by the wayside, Autumn's pageant stops:
An opening mussel-shell, that shows
A streak of rose,
The dawn is; ready to disclose
The sun's red pearl above the hills' blue tops.
Where, by the wayside, Autumn's pageant stops:
An opening mussel-shell, that shows
A streak of rose,
The dawn is; ready to disclose
The sun's red pearl above the hills' blue tops.
The cold fires of the marigolds, that raise
Their dripping torches by the garden ways;
And salvia's chilly lamps, that burn
Twixt flames of fern,
That flicker from the terrace-urn,
Seem fairy lanterns in the morning haze.
Their dripping torches by the garden ways;
And salvia's chilly lamps, that burn
Twixt flames of fern,
That flicker from the terrace-urn,
Seem fairy lanterns in the morning haze.
Those clouds of crystal—look!—dissolving, seem
Shallops that sail along a magic stream:
And—was't the wind far-off you heard?
Or elfin bird?
Bidding you follow at its word
Into another world of waking dream.
Shallops that sail along a magic stream:
And—was't the wind far-off you heard?
Or elfin bird?
Bidding you follow at its word
Into another world of waking dream.
It is a road on which new Beauty walks
With every Commonplace of life: With stalks
And stacks of grain; the rustling corn;
Old shed and barn;
And well-sweep standing so forlorn,
Pointing you back to times of which it talks.
With every Commonplace of life: With stalks
And stacks of grain; the rustling corn;
Old shed and barn;
And well-sweep standing so forlorn,
Pointing you back to times of which it talks.
241
So with the morning in your hearts and eyes,
Suffer the world to take you with surprise,
As when, in childhood, there, at first,
It held and nursed
Your wonder, ere with joy it burst
Suddenly on you in a new disguise.
Suffer the world to take you with surprise,
As when, in childhood, there, at first,
It held and nursed
Your wonder, ere with joy it burst
Suddenly on you in a new disguise.
| The Poet and Nature and The Morning Road | |