Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/311

 A SUMMER'S DAY 30I

Then in some grove forlorn, Whose shade the bosom of the stream embowers, 'Mid glooms so deep that color sleeps unborn

In the night-shrouded flowers,

Where clustering vines enwreath Some aged oak, I also would retreat, And, undisturbed the leafy arch beneath,

A prostrate log my seat,

Retired with friend or book, I'd shun the busy wilderness of men — Though fain sometimes to quit the wood, the brook,

The gloom-inspiring glen.

For the deep-vollied roar Of lengthening waves that thunder on the beach, Or breezy lake, so broad that the far shore

The tired sight scarce can reach,

Save that, 'twixt isles of green. Through vistas blue the eyes delighted stray To where huge misty mountains bound the scene,

And soar in heaven away.

��NIGHT,

Fair, too, is mellow eve, When dusky shades o'er all the landscape creep, And the bright clouds their rosy radiance leave

Upon the reddening deep !

The cricket sleepless sings. The glimmering firefly dimly lights the vale, And ghostly wraiths outstretch their vapory wings,

And up the meadows sail.

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