Was _that_ the landmark? What,--the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!) Was that my point of turning?--I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone or ensigned citadel. But lo! the path is missed, I must go back, And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring Which once I stained, which since may have grown black. Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening, That the same goal is still on the same track. A DARK DAY The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs Is like the drops which strike the traveller's brow Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears. Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares, Or hath but memory of the day whose plough Sowed hunger once,--the night at length when thou, O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers? How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth, Along the hedgerows of this journey shed, Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe! Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth, Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed. AUTUMN IDLENESS This sunlight shames November where he grieves In dead red leaves, and will not let him shun The day, though bough with bough be over-run. But with a blessing every glade receives High salutation; while from hillock-eaves The deer gaze calling, dappled white and dun, As if, being foresters of old, the sun Had marked them with the shade of forest-leaves. Here dawn to-day unveiled her magic glass; Here noon now gives the thirst and takes the dew; Till eve bring rest when other good things pass. And here the lost hours the lost hours renew While I still lead my shadow o'er the grass, Nor know, for longing, that which I should do. THE HILL SUMMIT This feast-day of the sun, his altar there In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song; And I have loitered in the vale too long And gaze now a belated worshipper. Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware, So journeying, of his face at intervals Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,-- A fiery bush with coruscating hair. And now that I have climbed and won this height, I must tread downward through the sloping shade And travel the bewildered tracks till night. Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed And see the gold air and the silver fade And the last bird fly into the last light. THE CHOICE I