FROM day to day the dreary heaven
Outpoured its hopeless heart in rain;
The conscious pines, half shuddering, heard
The secret of the East wind's pain.
Mist veiled the sun--the sombre land,
In floating cloud-wracks densely furled,
Seemed shut forever from the bloom
And gladness of the living world.
From week to week the changeless heaven
Wept on--and still its secret pain
To the bent pine-trees sobbed the wind,
In hollow truces of the rain.
Till in a sunset hour, whose light
Pale hints of radiance pulsed o'erhead,
Afar the moaning East wind died,
And the mild West wind breathed instead.
Then the clouds broke, and ceased the rain;
The sunset many a kindling shaft
Shot to the wood's heart; nature rose,
And through her soft-lipped verdures laughed.
Low to the breeze; as some fair maid,
Love wakes from troublous dreams, might rise,
Half dazed, yet happy--mists of sleep
Still hovering in her haunted eyes.
