Page:Poems Cook.djvu/227

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A SKETCH.
But there is one, in quiet lonely mood,
Taking a shadowy path apart from all;
Choosing the mossy margin, where the flood
Leads to the loud and dashing waterfall.

Slow, lingering—now to gaze upon the tide,
And watch the swelling ripples gliding by;
Now bending o'er the brooklet's shelving side,
With stiller breathing and a closer eye.

He muses with a long and earnest glance,
Noting the things his playmates never heed;
Pausing to see the water-lilies dance
To the soft music of the wave-splash'd reed.

He wonders none beside himself can find
Something to wonder at in woods and streams;
And knows not that his fresh, untutor'd mind
Is dreaming busily the poet's dreams.

He feels the immortal light of Spirit live
Within his breast—but knows not that in years
To come that warm and flashing ray will give
The brightest rainbow through the bitterest tears.

Life's sands run on.—The wayward child is now
All that foreboding tongues erst prophesied;
Reflection's cloud has darken'd on the brow,
And all youth promised, Time has not denied.

The cheeks have less of roundness and of red,
The grey eye has become more softly deep;
The lips are thinner, but the spirit shed
Around them tells that Feeling does not sleep.

211