Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/426

408 Beneath a fair but fiery crown: Its witchery broods o er earth and skies, Fills with divine amenities The bland, blue spaces of the air, And smiles with looks of drowsy cheer Mid hollows of the brown-hued hills; And oft, in tongues of tinkling rills, A softer, homelier utterance finds Than that which haunts the lingering winds! I love midsummer s azure deep, Whereon the huge white clouds, asleep, Scarce move through lengths of tranced hours; Some, raised in forms of giant towers Dumb Babels, with ethereal stairs Scaling the vast height unawares What mocking spirit, ether-born, Hath built those transient spires in scorn, And reared towards the topmost sky Their unsubstantial fantasy! Some stretched in tenuous arcs of light Athwart the airy infinite, Far glittering up yon fervid dome, And lapped by cloudland s misty foam, Whose wreaths of fine sun-smitten spray Melt in a burning haze away; Some throned in heaven s serenest smiles, Pure-hued, and calm as fairy isles, Girt by the tides of soundless seas The heavens benign Hesperides. I love midsummer uplands, free To the bold raids of breeze and bee, Where, nested warm in yellowing grass,