With awe and wonder, and all the will

Is bow'd with a grandeur that frets the sky.

A

A flash of lakes through the fragrant trees,

song of birds and a sound of bees
Above in the boughs of the sugar-pine.
The pick-axe stroke in the placer mine,
The boom of blasts in the gold-ribbed hills,
The grizzly's growl in the gorge below
Are dying away, and the sound of rills
From the far-off shimmering crest of snow,
The laurel green and the ivied oak,

A yellow stream and a cabin's smoke,

The brown bent hills and the shepherd's call,
The hills of vine and of fruits, and all
The sweets of Eden are here, and we

Look out and afar to a limitless sea.

We have lived an age in a half-moon-wane! We have seen a world! We have chased the sun From sea to sea; but the task is done. We here descend to the great white main,— To the King of Seas, with the temples bare And a tropic breath on the brow and hair.

We are hush'd with wonder, we stand apart, We stand in silence; the heaving heart Fills full of heaven, and then the knees Go down in worship on the golden sands. With faces seaward, and with folded hands We gaze on the beautiful Balboa seas.

AN INDIAN SUMMER.

HE world it is wide; men go their ways;

THE

But love he is wise, and of all the hours,
And of all the beautiful sun-born days,

He sips their sweets as the bees sip flowers.

HE sunlight lay in gather'd sheaves

THE SU

Along the ground, the golden leaves Possess'd the land and lay in bars Above the lifted lawn of green Beneath the feet, or fell, as stars Fall, slantwise, shimmering and still Upon the plain, upon the hill, And heaving hill and plain between.

Some steeds in panoply were seen, Strong, martial trained, with manes in air, And tassell'd reins and mountings rare; Some silent people here and there, That gather'd leaves with listless will, Or moved adown the dappled green,

Or look'd away with idle gaze

Against the gold and purple haze.

You might have heard red leaflets fall,
The pheasant on the farther hill,
A single, lonely, locust trill,

Or sliding sable cricket call

From out the grass, but that was all.

A wanderer of many lands

Was I, a weary Ishmaelite,

That knew the sign of lifted hands;
Had seen the Crescent-mosques, had seen
The Druid oaks of Aberdeen—

Recross'd the hilly seas, and saw

The sable pines of Mackinaw,

And lakes that lifted cold and white.

I saw the sweet Miami, saw
The swift Ohio bent and roll'd
Between his gleaming walls of gold,
The Wabash banks of gray pawpaw,
The Mississippi's ash; at morn
Of autumn, when the oak is red,
Saw slanting pyramids of corn,
The level fields of spotted swine,

The crooked lanes of lowing kine,
And in the burning bushes saw
The face of God, with bended head.

But when I saw her face, I said, "Earth has no fruits so fairly red As these that swing above my head; No purpled leaf, no poppied land, Like this that lies in reach of hand."

And, soft, unto myself I said: "O soul, inured to rue and rime, To barren toil and bitter bread, To biting rime, to bitter rue, Earth is not Nazareth; be good. O sacred Indian-summer time Of scarlet fruits, of fragrant wood, Of purpled clouds, of curling haze-O days of golden dreams and days Of banish'd, vanish'd tawny men, Of martial songs and manly deeds— Be fair to-day, and bear me true." We mounted, turn'd the sudden steeds Toward the yellow hills, and flew.