Collected Poems

t there; Unconscious as the rose, or golden-rod, How things so beautiful do upward bear The soul into the very airs of God! O angel golden-haired, unknown to thee, Thy presence to such heights hath lifted me! July, 1871. A SKETCH IN COLORS I walked along the road as night came down, A sunset dyed the sky upon my right, And on the left a round moon met my sight, Rising from out the earthly shadows brown. A bright, fair moon; a glittering, joyous moon: Which, as it lay upon the eastern sky, Seemed almost like the sun unto the eye, Shining so golden, Nature's greatest boon. The sunset on my right was beautiful! Well up in the sky a wash of faintest green; Below, a pale soft yellow could be seen, Which fed a band of orange deep and dull; And fields of rich vermilion darkened still Into one strong red line which rimmed the hill. Germantown, Monday Evening, December 25, 1871. LATE AFTERNOON IN DECEMBER The temperate air is filled with a gray mist, Which thickens to a dense cloud when the eye To make out forms of distant things doth try, And whose close fold the sunbeams doth resist. The ground is soaked and darkened with the rain, And in the road slow carriage wheels have rolled Deep ruts, that little pools of water hold, And in the path my steps leave footprints plain. In the sleeping trees no life is visible; And, with this ghostly mist wrapped all around Their branches, fancy makes them see...