The Perfect Day

GOD made a day of blue and gold,

Sweet as a violet,

As merry as a marigold;

It may be shining yet

In some blest vale, some dreamy dell

Among the heavenly hills,

Where here and there the asphodel

Is flecked by daffodils

And gentians, flowers that twinkled on

The fields our childhood knew,

Too lovely for oblivion,

Fed with immortal dew.

That summer day, all murmurous

With laughters of old mirth,

How tenderly 'twould comfort us,

Still homesick for the earth;

With what dear touch 'twould fold us in,

As to a mother's knee,

From those strange spaces crystalline

Of vast eternity,

— A day God saw with smiling eyes,

The summer's coronet!

In His far cycles of surprise

It may be shining yet.