Anne Glenny Wilson: Verses about Nature

The morning is wild and dark,
The night mist runs on the vale,
Bright Lucifer dies to a spark,
And the wind whistles up for a gale.
And stormy the day may be
That breaks through its prison bars,
But it brings no regret to me,
For I sing at the door of the stars!

Along the dim ocean-verge
I see the ships labouring on;
They rise on the lifting surge
One moment, and they are gone.
I see on the twilight plain
The flash of the flying cars;
Men travail in joy or pain -
But I sing at the door of the stars!

I see the green, sleeping world,
The pastures all glazed with rime;
The smoke from the chimney curled;
I hear the faint church bells chime.
I see the grey mountain crest,
The slopes, and the forest spars,
With the dying moon on their breast -
While I sing at the door of the stars!

‘COME, before the summer passes
Let us seek the mountain land:’
So they called me, happy playmates,
And we left the dawn-lit strand:
Riding on till later sunbeams slanted
On dark hills and downward-plunging streams,
And the solemn forest softly chanted
Old, old dreams.

From the pass, we saw in glory
Wave on purple wave unrolled
To the cloud-encircled summit
Floating high, alone and cold:
Like that altar-stone, by men of Athens
Dedicated to the unknown God;
Waiting for some fire to touch his holy
White abode.

Then the mellow sunset dying
Passed in rosy fire away,
And the stars and planets journeyed
On their ancient unknown way.
Riders of the illimitable heaven!
Moving on so far beyond our ken,
Do ye scorn the toiling, heavy-hearted
Sons of men?

Ere we slept we heard the torrents
Rushing from that mighty hill
Join in deep melodious singing,
While the forest-land was still.
Music of forgotten wildernesses!
Would that I could hear that song again!
Song of primal Earth’s enchanted sweetness,
Joy and pain.

Do you remember that careless band,
Riding o'er meadow and wet sea-sand,
One autumn day, in a mist of sunshine,
Joyously seeking for fairyland?

The wind in the tree-tops was scarcely heard,
The streamlet repeated its one silver word,
And far away, o'er the depths of wood-land,
Floated the bell of the parson-bird.

Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips,
Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips,
From mossy branches a faint perfume
Breathed o'er honeyed Clematis lips.

At last we climbed to the ridge on high
Ah, crystal vision! Dreamland nigh!
Far, far below us, the wide Pacific
Slumbered in azure from sky to sky.

And cloud and shadow, across the deep
Wavered, or paused in enchanted sleep,
And eastward, the purple-misted islets
Fretted the wave with terrace and steep.

We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay,
On headlands sheeted in dazzling spray,
And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlorn
That for twenty years had wasted away.

All was so calm, and pure and fair,
It seemed the hour of worship there,
Silent, as where the great North-Minster
Rises for ever, a visible prayer.

Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land,
And rode over shingle and silver sand,
For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn,
That we sought no farther for Fairyland.