Hemlock and aspen, chestnut, beech, and fir Go tiering down from storm-worn crest and ledge, While in the hollows of the dark ravine See the red road emerge, then disappear Towards the wide plain and fertile valley lands.
My forest cabin half-way up the glen Is solitary, save for one wise thrush, The sound of falling water, and the wind Mysteriously conversing with the leaves.
Here I abide unvisited by doubt, Dreaming of far-off turmoil and despair, The race of men and love and fleeting time, What life may be, or beauty, caught and held For a brief moment at eternal poise.
What impulse now shall quicken and make live This outward semblance and this inward self? One breath of being fills the bubble world, Colored and frail, with fleeting change on change.
Surely some God contrived so fair a thing In a vast leisure of uncounted days, And touched it with the breath of living joy, Wondrous and fair and wise! It must be so.
At evening and at morning By an enchanted way I walk the world in wonder, And have no word to say.
It is the path we traversed One twilight, thou and I; Thy beauty all a rapture, My spirit all a cry.
The red leaves fall upon it, The moon and mist and rain, But not the magic footfall That made its meaning plain.
There is a world of being We range from pole to pole, Through seasons of the spirit And weather of the soul.
It has its new-born Aprils, With gladness in the air, Its golden Junes of rapture, Its winters of despair.
And in its tranquil autumns We halt to re-enforce Our tattered scarlet pennons With valor and resource.
From undiscovered regions Only the angels know, Great winds of aspiration Perpetually blow,
To free the sap of impulse From torpor of distrust, And into flowers of joyance Quicken the sentient dust.
From nowhere of a sudden Loom sudden clouds of fault, With thunders of oppression And lightnings of revolt.
With hush of apprehension And quaking of the heart, There breed the storms of anger, And floods of sorrow start.
And there shall fall,--how gently!-- To make them fertile yet, The rain of absolution On acres of regret.
Till snows of mercy cover The dream that shall come true, When time makes all things wondrous, And life makes all things new.