III “Life Ever Seems as from Its Present Site”

Life ever seems as from its present site

It aimed to lure us. Mountains of the past

It melts, with all their crags and caverns vast,

Into a purple cloud! Across the night

Which hides what is to be, it shoots a light

All rosy with the yet unrisen dawn.

Not the near daisies, but yon distant height

Attracts us, lying on this emerald lawn.

And always, be the landscape what it may —

Blue, misty hill or sweep of glimmering plain —

It is the eye's endeavor still to gain

The fine, faint limit of the bounding day.

God, haply, in this mystic mode, would fain

Hint of a happier home, far, far away!