In Tuolumne Meadows

I Love to sit in the sun

And watch the foaming Lyell

Leap over its granite bed.

I love these days that run

On a burnished golden dial

With the blue sky overhead.

I love to waken at night

And whisper the stars above me,

And feel the fingering breeze.

So still is the world, so right,

Where even the black pines love me,

And the white moon guards my ease.

I love the upward ways

To the sun-tipped crest of the mountains

High over the billowy world;

Where the wind sings hymns of praise,

And the snows break into fountains,

And life is a flag unfurled.

I love—ah, beloved, what bliss

Would shatter the ice like a river

And sing all the way to the sea,

If the world could be lost for this,

And you from your sorrow forever

Could rest on the heart of me !