Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/97

Nor bee nor bird-song the still light contains;
Sunned sober fir forests descend or climb;
Blue skies arch over blue inclining seas.
Midway beneath me, girt with leafy gold,
A brown old convent in a nest of trees
Tranquil abides; yon lowly shadows fold
Thee, dearest daughter, sweet companion!
Far cloven crags, a pale grey brotherhood,
Dream in the azure, phantoms tall and wan,
Bounding a billowy waste of solitude,
Brown rolling realms of desert shadow-stained
From slow white cloud; yon height of sombre form
For all day's rich caresses, hath retained
His lonely gloom, broods o'er the night enorm
Of his own shadow whelming the wide earth.

Now in deep stillness, as of calm white death,
What wraith of dubious low sound hath birth
As from another world? slow wins more breath?
May it be mellow sound of some far bell
From a far hamlet on far height? But why
Do the dear airs bear him I love so well,
The image of my lost, who ever nigh
Mv heart abides, more close against me, so
That I behold him, and he seems to call
In these low melodies that faintly flow,
And float upon blue waves aerial?
His own sweet self thrills memory; her hall,