The Poetry of Real Life A New Edition, Much Enlarged and Improved. By Henry Ellison |
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ON A SUNSET LANDSCAPE, SEEN OVER WATER. |
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 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON A SUNSET LANDSCAPE, SEEN OVER WATER.
I looked—the sun was setting rosy-red:
I gazed, with more and more intense delight,
As, like a halo of ethereal light,
His rays were gathered round the sinking head
Of dying Day—along the stream were spread
The last, faint smiles of Nature, calmly bright,
As if on her so holy works her sight
For the last time were bent, ere Night should wed
Them to Oblivion! beyond the stream
There lay a happy land, like Paradise:
As fair and still as, but too like, a dream!
Alas! beyond the stream it ever lies,
That happy land, and in the far-off gleam
Of spectral suns, unknown to mortal eyes!
I gazed, with more and more intense delight,
As, like a halo of ethereal light,
His rays were gathered round the sinking head
Of dying Day—along the stream were spread
The last, faint smiles of Nature, calmly bright,
As if on her so holy works her sight
For the last time were bent, ere Night should wed
Them to Oblivion! beyond the stream
There lay a happy land, like Paradise:
As fair and still as, but too like, a dream!
Alas! beyond the stream it ever lies,
That happy land, and in the far-off gleam
Of spectral suns, unknown to mortal eyes!
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But yet the spirit can that prize attain:
That can pass over, distant though it seem!
And, through the eyes, endowed with power supreme
O'er outward circumstance, it doth obtain
Free egress, and comes back at will again.
Through those Elysian fields, beyond the stream,
Flowing like fabled river in a dream,
It wanders, and at will doth there remain!
Reader, hast understood? then go, likewise,
And let thy soul, believingly, make true
My words, and so that fair land realize!
For, if that dwell there, thou dwell'st in it too,
And calmly thence Life's turmoil here may'st view;
That stream is Time's, that land Eternity's!
That can pass over, distant though it seem!
And, through the eyes, endowed with power supreme
O'er outward circumstance, it doth obtain
Free egress, and comes back at will again.
Through those Elysian fields, beyond the stream,
Flowing like fabled river in a dream,
It wanders, and at will doth there remain!
Reader, hast understood? then go, likewise,
And let thy soul, believingly, make true
My words, and so that fair land realize!
For, if that dwell there, thou dwell'st in it too,
And calmly thence Life's turmoil here may'st view;
That stream is Time's, that land Eternity's!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |