Gloria Mundi (Lowell)

by James Russell Lowell

For works with similar titles, see Gloria Mundi.

Red gold of parting sunset, backward thrown,
In largess on my tall paternal trees,
Thou with delusive care didst never tease
The heart hat hoards thee; childhood is not flown
From him whose life no fairer boon hath known
Than that what pleased him earliest still would please:
Nor are there incomes safe from Fate as these,
So evanescent, so for life our own:
All grosser gold is slave to earthly laws,
But this with things immortal claims its right,
As on the topmost leaves it seems to pause
In tremulous passion ere it yield to night:
So linger, when the light of earth withdraws,
Radiance of heart, pathetically bright!