Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/419

Rh Touch, touch me not, nor wake me, Lest grosser thoughts o ertake me, From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars, What viewless arms caress me? What whispered voices bless me, With welcomes dropping dewlike from the weird and wondrous stars? Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer Grows the preternatural glimmer Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of balm, For behold! its spirit flieth, And its fairy murmur dieth, And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!

ASPECTS OF THE PINES

Tall, somber, grim, against the morning sky They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs, Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully, As if from realms of mystical despairs. Tall, somber, grim, they stand with dusky gleams Brightening to gold within the woodland s core, Beneath the gracious noontide s tranquil beams But the weird w r inds of morning sigh no more. A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable, Broods round and o er them in the wind s surcease, And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace.