Sunset on the Bearcamp
by John Greenleaf Whittier�(1807�1892) |
 |
|
A GOLD fringe on the purpling hem
Of hills, the river
runs,
As down its long, green valleys falls
The last
of summer's suns.
Along its tawny gravel-bed,
Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
As if its meadow levels
felt
The hurry of the hill,
Noiseless between its
banks of green,
From curve to curve it slips:
The
drowsy maple-shadows rest
Like fingers on its lips.
A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,
Unstoried and
unknown;
The ursine legend of its name
Prowls on its
banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn
As
ever Yarrow knew,
Or, under rainy Irish skies,
By
Spenser's Mulla grew;
And through the gaps of leaning
trees
Its mountain-cradle shows,�
The gold against the
amethyst,
The green against the rose.
Touched by a
light that hath no name,
A glory never sung,
Aloft on
sky and mountain-wall
Are God's great pictures hung.
How changed the summits vast and old!
No longer
granite-browed,
They melt in rosy mist; the rock
Is
softer than the cloud;
The valley holds its breath; no
leaf
Of all its elms is twirled:
The silence of
eternity
Seems falling on the world.
The pause
before the breaking seals
Of mystery is this:
Yon
miracle-play of night and day
Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills
That reach up stair on
stair?
What eyes look through, what white wings fan
These purple veils of air?
What Presence from the
heavenly heights
To those of earth stoops down?
Not
vainly Hellas dreamed of gods
On Ida's snowy crown!
Slow fades the vision of the sky;
The golden water
pales; 50
And over all the valley-land
A gray-winged
vapor sails.
I go the common way of all:
The
sunset-fires will burn,
The flowers will blow, the river
flow,
When I no more return.
No whisper from the
mountain-pine
Nor lapsing stream shall tell
The
stranger, treading where I tread,
Of him who loved them
well. |
By John Greenleaf Whittier�(1807�1892)
Listed April 26, 2014 |
|
Poem Use Permission Request
USA Patriotism! cannot
provide use permission for a poem or an author's email address
if not listed below the poem. Only the author or a legal
representative can grant permission. Try a search engine to find the
author's contact information for a use permission request or if
it is available for public use.
Note: Poems authored in the
1700s and 1800s can be used with reference to the author. |
Comment on this poem |
|
| | |
|
| Country and Flag Poems | Poem Categories |
|
