gay oriole echoed from the glen.
Wandering, I felt earth's peace, nor knew I sought
A visioned face, a voice the wind had caught.
I passed the waking things that stirred and gazed,
Thought-bound, and heeded not; the waking flowers
Drank in the morning mist, dawn's tender showers,
And looked forth for the Day-god who had blazed
His heart away and died at sundown. Far
In the gray west faded a loitering star.
It seemed that I had wandered through long years,
A life of years, still seeking gropingly
A thing I dared not name; now I could see
In the still dawn a hope, in the soft tears
Of the deep-hearted violets a breath
Of kinship, like the herald voice of Death.
Slow moved the morning; where the hill was bare
Woke a reluctant breeze. Dimly I knew
My Day was come. The wind-blown blossoms threw
Their breath about me, and the pine-swept air
Grew to a shape, a mighty, formless thing,
A phantom of the wood's imagining.
And as I gazed, spell-bound, it seemed to move
Its tendril limbs, still swaying tremulously
As if in spirit-doubt; then glad and free
Crystalled the being won from waiting grove
Into a human likeness. There he stood,
The vine-browed shape of Nature's mortal mood.
"Now have I found thee, Vision I have sought
These years, unknowing; surely thou art fair
And inly wise, and on thy tasselled hair
Glows Heaven's own light. Passion and fame are naught
To thy clear eyes, O Prince of many lands,--
Grant me thy joy," I cried, and stretched my hands.
No answer but the flourish of the breeze
Through the black pines. Then, slowly, as the wind
Parts the dense cloud-forms, leaving naught behind
But shapeless vapor, through the budding trees
Drifted some force unseen, and from my sight
Faded my god into the morning light.
Again alone. With wistful, straining eyes
I waited, and the sunshine flecked the bank
Happy with arbutus and violets where I sank
Hearing, near by, a host of melodies,
The rapture of the woodthrush; soft her mood
The love-mate, with such golden numbers woo'd.
He ceased; the fresh moss-odors filled the grove
With a strange sweetness, the dark hemlock boughs
Moved soft, as though they heard the brooklet rouse
To its spring soul, and wh
|