O THAT immortal day of June When the sky and the pine-crowned hill were one, As I played through the long, bright afternoon, Alone with the wind and the westering sun! And when he sank, o'er the neighbor ridge, In a blaze of crimson lit with gold, The clouds were angels floating to me Across that rosy, radiant sea, And all was glory and mystery In the heaven of heavens his set unrolled; — And O that Indian Summer morn When all the sighing winds were still, And the bay of hounds and the lilt of horn Came up from the hollow beneath the hill! Rich and clear from the rocky glens As they followed the flying fox to the west; Mellow and faint and dying away Beyond the wood and the upland gray, In the hazy, slumberous sky that lay Over Monadnock's lordly crest; — And that night when the snows the storm had flung Rose, drift on drift, to the burdened eaves; And the waning moon in the orient hung, And the wind went by like a soul that grieves; And, wide to north, the banners waved Of aurora's flitting, spectral host — Their flaming lances flashing keen The ranks of the paling stars between, While sky and snow, with the ruddy sheen, Glowed till in dim, bleak dawn 'twas lost; — October's morn — the skies alight — Live still in the vision memory brings; Again the cloud is an angel's flight, And echo a fairy that hides and sings; Again the wind of June blows sweet, And heaven looks out in the setting sun; — Ah! never the later world can bring Such joy to the soul far journeying, As the bannered host and the angel's wing Of the days when earth and sky were one! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NO BABY IN THE HOUSE by CLARA G. DOLLIVER ON MONSIEUR'S DEPARTURE by ELIZABETH I THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH by WALT WHITMAN I HAVE LOVED by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS OENONE by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN WILD ROSES AND SNOW by H. T. MACKENZIE BELL |