Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/180

148   Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night
 * Make rival love, I leave ye soon,

What time before the eastern light
 * The pale ghost of the setting moon

Shall hide behind yon rocky spines,
 * And the young archer, Morn, shall break

His arrows on the mountain pines,
 * And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!

Farewell! around this smiling bay
 * Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom,

With lighter steps than mine, may stray
 * In radiant summers yet to come.

But none shall more regretful leave
 * These waters and these hills than I:

Or, distant, fonder dream how eve
 * Or dawn is painting wave and sky;

How rising moons shine sad and mild
 * On wooded isle and silvering bay;

Or setting suns beyond the piled
 * And purple mountains lead the day;

Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,
 * Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,

Shall add, to life’s abounding joy,
 * The charmed repose to suffering dear.

Still waits kind Nature to impart
 * Her choicest gifts to such as gain

An entrance to her loving heart
 * Through the sharp discipline of pain.

Forever from the Hand that takes
 * One blessing from us others fall;

And, soon or late, our Father makes
 * His perfect recompense to all!

Oh, watched by Silence and the Night,
 * And folded in the strong embrace

Of the great mountains, with the light
 * Of the sweet heavens upon thy face.

Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower
 * Of beauty still, and while above

Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
 * Be thou the mirror of God’s love.

strange to greet, this frosty morn,
 * In graceful counterfeit of flowers,

These children of the meadows, born
 * Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains
 * The pictures of its flower-sown home,