 | Voices and visions |  |
27
XVIII
SANCTUARY
Come, love, while the light is yet lowly and lazy
O'er languors of evening's red glooms;
While still the pale disc of each delicate daisy
Has died not from pastures it plumes.
Come, hear the large boughs of the sycamores quiver
With breeze that the sunset has brought,
And watch how the reeds by the rims of the river
To luminous ripples are wrought.
O'er languors of evening's red glooms;
While still the pale disc of each delicate daisy
Has died not from pastures it plumes.
Come, hear the large boughs of the sycamores quiver
With breeze that the sunset has brought,
And watch how the reeds by the rims of the river
To luminous ripples are wrought.
Here bide we encompassed with calms and contentments,
Our souls full of exquisite rest,
The haughty old world, with its hollow presentments,
Remoter than yonder dim west.
Its fevers and follies, its boasts and ambitions,
Like vanishing vapours are past;
We flouted the flaunt of their trivial traditions;
We broke from their bondage at last.
Our souls full of exquisite rest,
The haughty old world, with its hollow presentments,
Remoter than yonder dim west.
Its fevers and follies, its boasts and ambitions,
Like vanishing vapours are past;
We flouted the flaunt of their trivial traditions;
We broke from their bondage at last.
Great Nature has girt us with spells like the greeting
Of arms that allure and enwreathe;
Her brooks in their flowing, her winds in their fleeting,
Have grown like the breaths that we breathe.
She sighs, and we sadden; she laughs, and we brighten;
Her gay moods or sombre we share;
Our hope to the reach of her rainbow can heighten,
Or turn, with her tears, to despair.
Of arms that allure and enwreathe;
Her brooks in their flowing, her winds in their fleeting,
Have grown like the breaths that we breathe.
She sighs, and we sadden; she laughs, and we brighten;
Her gay moods or sombre we share;
Our hope to the reach of her rainbow can heighten,
Or turn, with her tears, to despair.
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She charms, yet she chides us, denies, yet endows us,
And brews for us bitter with sweet;
Yet never by tawdry pretension o'erbrows us,
Nor stings us by stealthy deceit.
Her gifts to no caste or preferment she panders;
Divine her democracy stays;
In sequences kinned with magnificent candours,
We search all her deeds and her days.
And brews for us bitter with sweet;
Yet never by tawdry pretension o'erbrows us,
Nor stings us by stealthy deceit.
Her gifts to no caste or preferment she panders;
Divine her democracy stays;
In sequences kinned with magnificent candours,
We search all her deeds and her days.
At last have we changed for these pageants of cloudland
The pomp that from falsity flows;
At last have we bartered the loud land, the proud land,
For bournes of relief and repose. ...
Come, love, while the light is yet lazy and lowly,
Ere starshine the rich blue has cleft;
Come, learn from great Nature how lofty and holy
She looms o'er the life we have left.
The pomp that from falsity flows;
At last have we bartered the loud land, the proud land,
For bournes of relief and repose. ...
Come, love, while the light is yet lazy and lowly,
Ere starshine the rich blue has cleft;
Come, learn from great Nature how lofty and holy
She looms o'er the life we have left.
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