FAREWELL. In dimmer distance I watch your figures glide, Across the sunny moorland, The brown hillside; Each momently up rising Large, dark against the sky, Then -- in the vacant moorland, Alone sit I. Within the unknown country Where your lost footsteps pass, What beauty decks the heavens And clothes the grass! Over the mountains shoulder What glories may unfold! Though I see but the mountain Bleak, bare and cold, -- And the white road, slow winding To where, each after each, You slipped away -- ah, wither? I cannot reach. And if I call, what answers? Only 'twixt earth and sky, Like wail of parting spirit, The curlew's cry. Yet, sunny is the moorland, And soft the pleasant air, And little flowers like blessings, Grow everywhere. While, over all, the mountain Stands sombre, calm, and still, Immutable and steadfast, As the One Will. Which, done on earth, in heaven Eternally confessed By men and saints and angels, Be ever blest! Under its infinite shadow (Safer than light of ours!) I'll sit me down a little, And gather flowers. Then I will rise and follow After the setting day, Without one wish to linger, -- The appointed way. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1) by RICHARD HENRY STODDARD PRAYER OF AN UNEMPLOYED MAN by W. C. ACKERLY YOUR NEIGHBOR by H. HOWARD BIGGAR SLEEPING OUT: FULL MOON by RUPERT BROOKE CROMWELL'S REFLECTIONS ON 'KILLING NO MURDER' by EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER-LYTTON PICKING APPLES IN VERMONT by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY |