Over The Hillside

FAREWELL. In dimmer distance
I watch your figures glide,
Across the sunny moorland,
The brown hillside;

Each momently up rising
Large, dark against the sky,
Then--in the vacant moorland,
Alone sit I.

Within the unknown country
Where your lost footsteps pass,
What beauty decks the heavens
And clothes the grass!

Over the mountains shoulder
What glories may unfold!
Though I see but the mountain
Bleak, bare and cold,--

And the white road, slow winding
To where, each after each,
You slipped away--ah, wither?
I cannot reach.

And if I call, what answers?
Only 'twixt earth and sky,
Like wail of parting spirit,
The curlew's cry.

* * * *

Yet, sunny is the moorland,
And soft the pleasant air,
And little flowers like blessings,
Grow everywhere.

While, over all, the mountain
Stands sombre, calm, and still,
Immutable and steadfast,
As the One Will.

Which, done on earth, in heaven
Eternally confessed
By men and saints and angels,
Be ever blest!

Under its infinite shadow
(Safer than light of ours!)
I'll sit me down a little,
And gather flowers.

Then I will rise and follow
After the setting day,
Without one wish to linger,--
The appointed way.