It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one’s own.
Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future.
Sometimes an hour of Fate’s serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.
The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks A scarlet rain; the yellow violet Sat in the chariot of its leaves, the phlox Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet, And all the streams with vernal-scented reed Were fringed, and streaky bellow of miskodeed.
Wrapped in his sad-colored cloak, the Day, like a Puritan, standeth Stern in the joyless fields, rebuking the lingering color,– Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,– Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top.
