FAREWELL. In dimmer distance <br />I watch your figures glide, <br />Across the sunny moorland, <br />The brown hillside; <br /> <br />Each momently up rising <br />Large, dark against the sky, <br />Then--in the vacant moorland, <br />Alone sit I. <br /> <br />Within the unknown country <br />Where your lost footsteps pass, <br />What beauty decks the heavens <br />And clothes the grass! <br /> <br />Over the mountains shoulder <br />What glories may unfold! <br />Though I see but the mountain <br />Bleak, bare and cold,-- <br /> <br />And the white road, slow winding <br />To where, each after each, <br />You slipped away--ah, wither? <br />I cannot reach. <br /> <br />And if I call, what answers? <br />Only 'twixt earth and sky, <br />Like wail of parting spirit, <br />The curlew's cry. <br /> <br />* * * * <br /> <br />Yet, sunny is the moorland, <br />And soft the pleasant air, <br />And little flowers like blessings, <br />Grow everywhere. <br /> <br />While, over all, the mountain <br />Stands sombre, calm, and still, <br />Immutable and steadfast, <br />As the One Will. <br /> <br />Which, done on earth, in heaven <br />Eternally confessed <br />By men and saints and angels, <br />Be ever blest! <br /> <br />Under its infinite shadow <br />(Safer than light of ours!) <br />I'll sit me down a little, <br />And gather flowers. <br /> <br />Then I will rise and follow <br />After the setting day, <br />Without one wish to linger,-- <br />The appointed way.<br /><br />Dinah Maria Mulock Craik<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/over-the-hillside/
