Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/197

Rh And now, while over Nature’s mood
 * There steals a soft relenting,

I will not mar the present good,
 * Forecasting or lamenting.

My autumn time and Nature’s hold
 * A dreamy tryst together,

And, both grown old, about us fold
 * The golden-tissued weather.

I lean my heart against the day
 * To feel its bland caressing;

I will not let it pass away
 * Before it leaves its blessing.

God’s angels come not as of old
 * The Syrian shepherds knew them;

In reddening dawns, in sunset gold,
 * And warm noon lights I view them.

Nor need there is, in times like this
 * When heaven to earth draws nearer,

Of wing or song as witnesses
 * To make their presence clearer.

O stream of life, whose swifter flow
 * Is of the end forewarning,

Methinks thy sundown afterglow
 * Seems less of night than morning!

Old cares grow light; aside I lay
 * The doubts and fears that troubled;

The quiet of the happy day
 * Within my soul is doubled.

That clouds must veil this fair sunshine
 * Not less a joy I find it;

Nor less yon warm horizon line
 * That winter lurks behind it.

The mystery of the untried days
 * I close my eyes from reading;

His will be done whose darkest ways
 * To light and life are leading!

Less drear the winter night shall be,
 * If memory cheer and hearten

Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee,
 * Sweet summer of St. Martin!

kneel before some saintly shrine, To breathe the health of airs divine, Or bathe where sacred rivers flow, The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go. I too, a palmer, take, as they With staff and scallop-shell, my way To feel, from burdening cares and ills, The strong uplifting of the hills.

The years are many since, at first, For dreamed-of wonders all athirst, I saw on Winnipesaukee fall