Unknown the dew of bliss, or fate's hard rod.

Thus dreamed I ... But I know our mother Earth

Waits to give back the peace she reft at birth.

VIII.

By mead and marsh and sandhill clad with bent,

Soothed by the wistful musings of the wind

That in scarce listening ears are mildly dinned,

On plods the traveller till the day be spent,

And day-dreams end in dreamless night at last.

He hears, beyond the grey bent's silken waves,

The foam-embroidered waters ever cast

On sighing sands and into echoing caves.

And from the west, where the last sunset glow

Still lingers on the border hills afar,

Come pastoral sounds, attenuate and low,

Thence where the night shall bring, 'neath cloud and star,

Silence to yearn o'er folk worn with day's strife,

Lost in blank sleep to hope, regret, death, life.

[An alternative ending:

While from the West comes murmuring earthly noise,

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