A gallery of famous English and American poets . sister. Folded close under deepening snow. WHITTIER. THE RIVER PATH. No bird-song Hoated down the liill,The tano-led bank below was still: No rustle fiom the birchen stem,No ripple from the waters hem. The dusk of twilight round us grew,We felt the falling of the dew; For, from us, ere the day was done,The wooded hills shut out the sun. But on the rivers farther sideWe saw the hill-tops glorified,^ A tender glow, exceeding fair, A dream of day without its glare. With us the damp, the chill, the gloom :With them the sunsets rosy bloom; While dark
A gallery of famous English and American poets . sister. Folded close under deepening snow. WHITTIER. THE RIVER PATH. No bird-song Hoated down the liill,The tano-led bank below was still: No rustle fiom the birchen stem,No ripple from the waters hem. The dusk of twilight round us grew,We felt the falling of the dew; For, from us, ere the day was done,The wooded hills shut out the sun. But on the rivers farther sideWe saw the hill-tops glorified,^ A tender glow, exceeding fair, A dream of day without its glare. With us the damp, the chill, the gloom :With them the sunsets rosy bloom; While dark, through willowy vistas seen,The river rolled in shade between. From out the darkness where we gazed upon those hills of God, Whose light seemed not of moon or spake not, but our thought was one. 443 444 WHITTIEK. We paused, as if from that l^riglit shoreBeckoned our dear ones gone before; And stilled our beating hearts to hearThe voices lost to mortal ear! Sudden our pathway turned from night;The hills swung open to the light;. Through their green gates the sunshine showed,A long, slant splendor downward flowed. Down glade and glen and banlc it rolled;It bridged the shaded stream with gold; And, borne on piers of mist, alliedThe shadowy with the sunlit side ! So, prayed we, when our foct draw nearThe rivei dark with moital fear, TIIR VANISHERS. 445 And the nisrlit cometli chill with dew,0 Father! let thy light break through! So let the hills ol doubt divide,So bridge with faith the sunless tide! So let the eyes that fail on earthOn thy eternal hills look forth; And in thy beckoning angels knowThe dear oyes whom we loved below ! THE VANISHERS. Sweetest of all childlike dreams In the simple Indian loreStill to me the legend seems Of the shapes who flit before. Flitting, passing, seen and gone,Never reached nor found at rest, Bafflins; search, but beckonino- onTo the Sunset of the Blest. From the clefts of mountain rocks,Througli the dark of lowland firs, Flash th
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