 | The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill |  |
245
TWO VIEWS OF IT
“O world, O glorious world, good-by!”
Time but to think it—one wild cry
Unuttered, a heart-wrung farewell
To sky and wood and flashing stream,
All gathered in a last swift gleam,
As the crag crumbled, and he fell.
Time but to think it—one wild cry
Unuttered, a heart-wrung farewell
To sky and wood and flashing stream,
All gathered in a last swift gleam,
As the crag crumbled, and he fell.
But lo! the thing was wonderful!
After the echoing crash, a lull:
The great fir on the slope below
Had spread its mighty mother-arm,
And caught him, springing like a bow
Of steel, and lowered him safe from harm.
After the echoing crash, a lull:
The great fir on the slope below
Had spread its mighty mother-arm,
And caught him, springing like a bow
Of steel, and lowered him safe from harm.
'T was but an instant's dark and daze:
Then, as he felt each limb was sound,
And slowly from the swooning haze
The dizzy trees stood still that whirled,
And the familiar sky and ground,
There grew with them across his brain
A dull regret: “So, world, dark world,
You are come back again!”
Then, as he felt each limb was sound,
And slowly from the swooning haze
The dizzy trees stood still that whirled,
And the familiar sky and ground,
There grew with them across his brain
A dull regret: “So, world, dark world,
You are come back again!”
| The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill | |