Classic Poem

Come clouds that rift upon an opal drift,
Come shades that shimmer through the purpling haze;
Come lights that sift upon the sands, and shift
To lengthen out the span of perfect days.

The stillness floats upon the idle boats,
Wrapped in their doubles on the harbor's breast.
Flitting like motes, afar, with mellow notes,
The mocking-birds pour out a song of rest.

Adown the stream the feeding seabirds scream,
The white gull, home bound, floats with silvered wing;
All shadows seem the dim gates of a dream,
All echoes, some soft wordless song to sing.

Across the tide the deepened channels glide
Like silver threads between the dun, brown bars,
Beyond whose side, by sweeping passes, hide
The liquid mirrors of the first white stars.

Upon the shore, with slow tread o'er and o'er,
The blue night-herons lone their vigils keep;
And shrill and sore, complaining more and more,
The whippoorwills grieve fledglings in their sleep.

The long light shakes upon the track it makes,
A rosy seal upon a white sail furled,
That, burning, wakes in sky and opal lakes,
Like watchfires gleaming from a stranger world.

All gold and red, the fleckless day is dead,
Kissed by the vagrant sweets that come and go;
The gull has fled, and Nature droops her head,
Lapped in the languor of the afterglow.