ll day an ashen light serene
Has brooded o'er this longed-for scene,
Its tints and damask flush all hiding,
As if obscured by a dusky screen.

Here when a child I used to lie
For hours, and watch the clouds go by,
See the black shadows climb the mountain
Or safely ride o'er the billowy rye.

O Beauty, shy as sylvan run,
Demure as some sweet-hooded nun,
And wrapt about with grey of gloaming,
Unveil thy face to the sinking sun.

ever before has my ear heard
A sweeter music, passion stirred,
Nor depth and purity so azurn,
Of breathing dawn and of morning bird.

She comes, in heyday of her blood,
Over the groves and waiting flood!
The air is vital with her presence,
And banners wave from the woodbine's bud.

AEolian sylphs touch soft their lutes,
Brooks tinkle, tinkle past the roots,
As Beauty, hidden in the cover,
Fingers the stops of her melting flutes.

imly beheld, thou excellent,
Ideal of grace! 'tis ravishment
To breathe thy atmosphere, O Beauty,
Whene'er thou stirr'st in thy greening tent.

I cannot see thee as thou art,
Nor trace thy goings but in part;
O dearer thus, like starry music
Half heard, that thrills with its string my heart.

If thou shouldst part thy sheeny veil
And strike thy fires, my heart would quail
Beneath the eye of naked glory,
The molten sun, as the moon, be pale.

air as the light on fire-tipt hills,
From out her hollow hand she spills
The pale and powdery moonbeams, sifting
O'er sleeping farms and the winking rills.

The silvered leaves smile in their sleep;
Headlands their hoary watches keep;
The glimmering ships the moonglade furrow—
The path where beauty fore-walks the deep.

And now the powdery beam is thrown
On marguerite and pearl moonstone,
On fluffy bird with wing aweary,—
Soft, dreaming child! 'tis her silver blown.

ith lathe of viewless hyaline,
She shapes the shell and scale and fin,
Dropping unseen her pearls of moonlight,
And blushes all as her kith and kin.

Distaff of light is in her hand,
From which she spins the lily, and
The sendal robes of field and forest,
With dewy odors in every strand.

And from her snow-white palette's dyes
She paints the peacock's hundred eyes,
The robin's egg, the apple blossom,

er steps fall sweet as summer rain,
And lull to dream the thoughts of pain,—
O glowing grass, O violet skyey,
Ye hint of something of fairer grain!

She outruns sympathy of crowds;
Her dwelling is above the clouds;
She stoops to kiss the rose to crimson—
Her face no featureless mask enshrouds.

Her chatelaine's of amber fine;
No hue of coming autumn's wine
But she outpours from tawny beaker,
And fills each grape of the swelling vine.

elestial sweetness swift outstrips
The light unleashed of its eclipse!—
A fire of dew burns in her bosom,
And steady glows through her eyes and lips.

She holds fair forms of ferns and seeds,
Lichens and fruits and burnished reeds,
And pours, in wake of mellow harvest,
Splendors of flame on the leaves and weeds.

O give, give me my own of that
Which sweeps and circles like the bat
Around me as I walk in ether,
O fair Divine, at whose feet I've sat!

nnumbered traits shine in thy face,
Harmonious blent in Time and Space;
Ideal of form, of tone, of color,
Of thought, emotion, and deed, O Grace!

Ay me! I speak familiar words.
Thou art a presence of my Lord's!
Spirit of splendor, thou, O Beauty,
That lights His brow, and that crowns and girds.

O Christ, Thou bright Heaven's Morning Star,
In whom all live and move and are,
Thou Chiefest, altogether lovely,
Beauty in Time is Thy avatar!

he scarlet arch of evening fills
Heights o'er the vapor-laden hills
With brilliant samite robes that flutter
Something beneath that my spirit thrills.

O Infinite, and Whom I bless!
Glow of embodied perfectness!
O Sea of supersensuous Being,
Whose tides the unutterable express!

(This, this it was that Plato saw
On back of Heaven!)—Let self withdraw
From this o'ermastering light and splendor,
These rolling waves of a trembling awe!

his tiny life, with exquisite wings,
Is one with all earth's moving things;
The light that burns in great Arcturus