Page:Poets of John Company.djvu/74

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And still in holy dream I pace
 * Thy sands the livelong day.

And pray that our and thy disgrace.
 * May quickly pass away;

And oft I look, but still in vain,
 * To see thy hoary head,

In all an injured God's disdain,
 * Uprising from thy bed.

And when upon thy glassy stream
 * Descends the glow of even,

It seems—oh does it only seem—
 * Thy wave to mix with heaven:

I thither bend my ardent gaze,
 * Till every hue be past,

Assured that in that radiant blaze,
 * Thou wilt descend at last.

And in the solemn hour of night,
 * When Nature's pulse has died.

With many a dark and nameless rite,
 * I haunt thy gloomy tide;

And oft I lift my voice on high,
 * To chaunt the magic line,

And start at echo's far reply,
 * Half dreading it is thine.

And now chill age begins to creep
 * In languor thro' my blood,

And soon I seek thee—low and deep,
 * Beneath thy gushing flood:

But oh! not yet—for still I yearn,
 * And still I look to see.

The splendours of the past return.
 * And all bow down to thee.