Yet was that valley not always so,
For I trod its summer-paths long ago;
And I gathered flowers of fairest dyes
Where now the snow-drift heaviest lies;
And I drank from rills that, with murmurous song,
Wandered in golden light along
Through bowers, whose ever-fragrant air
Was heavy with perfume of flowrets fair,--
Through cool, green meadows where, all day long,
The wild bee droned his voluptuous song;
While over all shone the eye of Love
In the violet-tinted heavens above.
And through that valley ran veins of gold,
And the rivers o'er beds of amber rolled;--
There were pearls in the white sands thickly sown,
And rocks that diamond-crusted shone;--
All richest fruitage, all rarest flowers,
All sweetest music of summer-bowers,
All sounds the softest, all sights most fair,
Made Earth a paradise everywhere.
Over the mountains, under the snow
Lieth that valley cold and low;
There came no slowly-consuming blight,
But the snow swept silently down at night,
And when the morning looked forth again,
The seal of silence was on the plain;
And fount and forest, and bower and stream,
Were shrouded all from his pallid beam.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115