Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/310

 300 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Sometime, in vapory shroud, The drizzly mists o'er all the meadows hang ; While, through the brooding rift, booms doubly loud

The distant clock-tower's clang.

Soon from the valleys green The reek, dispersed, floats drifting far and wide ; And now once more the pearly lake is seen.

Now the dark mountain's side ;

And now the sudden blaze, From yon blue rent, fires up the sparkling grass ; And, as the sun, unveiled, begins to gaze

Down in his watery glass,

Slowly from all the scene The hoary vapors high in heaven uprise, And in blue hills, dark woods, and valleys green.

The boundless landscape lies.

��NOON.

Sweet is the hush of noon. When light hath searched each solitary nook, And the brown oak scarce whispers to the tune

Of the light-babbling brook, —

When cattle on the hill Have gathered round the roots of each old tree,- Mute all, save the woodpecker's hammering bill,

Or buzz of humming bee, —

When in the quiet wood The turtles gather where the brook flows by. All life retired to deepest solitude

To shun the sultry sky.

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