Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/179

Rh :Along life’s summer waste, at times is fanned, Even at noontide, by the cool, sweet airs
 * Of a serener and a holier land,
 * Fresh as the morn, and as the dewfall bland.

Breath of the blessed Heaven for which we pray, Blow from the eternal hills! make glad our earthly way!

Yon mountain’s side is black with night,
 * While, broad-orbed, o’er its gleaming crown

The moon, slow-rounding into sight,
 * On the hushed inland sea looks down.

How start to light the clustering isles,
 * Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show

The shadows of their rocky piles,
 * And tree-tops in the wave below!

How far and strange the mountains seem,
 * Dim-looming through the pale, still light!

The vague, vast grouping of a dream,
 * They stretch into the solemn night.

Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale,
 * Hushed by that presence grand and grave,

Are silent, save the cricket’s wail,
 * And low response of leaf and wave.