"The dreams that come (so strange, so fair!) When all your world lies well within The moving magic circle where The sea ends and the skies begin?"......
......"What port is that, so far astern, Will Carver? And how many miles Shall we have run ere the tide turn? --And is it far to the farthest isles?"
Just where the field becomes the wood I thought I saw again Her old remembered face--made grey As it had known the rain.
The trees grow thickly there; no place Has half so many trees; And hunted things elude one there Like ancient memories.
The path itself is hard to find, And slopes up suddenly; --In the old days it was a path None knew so well as we.
The path slopes upward, till it leaves The great trees far behind; --I met her once where the slender birch Grow up to meet the wind.
Where the poplars quiver endlessly And the falling leaves are grey, I saw her come, and I was glad That she had learned the way.
She paused a moment where the path Grew sunlighted and broad; Within her hair slept all the gold Of all the golden-rod.
And then the wood closed in on her. And my hand found her hand; She had no words to say, yet I Was quick to understand.
I dared to look in her two eyes; They too, I thought, were grey: But no sun shone, and all around Great, quiet shadows lay.
Yet, as I looked, I surely knew That they knew nought of tears,-- But this was very long ago, --A year, perhaps ten years.
All this was long ago. Today, Her hand met not with mine; And where the pathway widened out I saw no gold hair shine.
I had a weary, fruitless search, --I think that her wan face Was but the face of one asleep Who dreams she knew this place.
O gold is the West and gold the river-waters Washing past the sides of my yellow birch canoe, Gold are the great drops that fall from my paddle, The far-off hills cry a golden word of you.
I can almost see you! Where its own shadow Creeps down the hill's side, gradual and slow. There you stand waiting; the goldenrod and thistle Glad of you beside them--the fairest thing they know.
Down the worn foot-path, the tufted pines behind you, Grey sheep between,--unfrightened as you pass; Swift through the sun-glow, I to my loved one Come, striving hard against the long trailing grass.