Page:The Man with the Hoe, Markham, 1900.djvu/83



A Lyric of the Dawn

Alone I list

In the leafy tryst;

Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep—

Silent the phantom wood in waters deep:

No footfall of a wind along the pass

Startles a harebell—stirs a blade of grass.

Yonder the wandering weeds,

Enchanted in the light,

Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white;

Yonder are plumy reeds,

Dusking the border of the clear lagoon;

Far off the silver clifts

Hang in ethereal light below the moon;

Far off the ocean lifts,

Tossing its billows in the misty beam,

And shore-lines whiten, silent as a dream: 55