And orchard fruitage streaked with morning pale,
Grow rosy with the rosy summer hours.
Green is the dewy turf and gay with flowers.
The morning sky is azure; we behold
The white clouds sleeping on the eastern hill,
At eve--a fleecy flock--they follow still
The shepherd sun upon his path of gold.
Sweet is the air, and peace is everywhere:
Save that in distant skies beyond our time
We mark the vivid shafts of lightning fly,
Shot from the twanging bow of thunder where
The sky is bright with pale auroral light,
Framed in by darkness; there we view
The stern death-struggling of armed hosts--
The smoke of burning cities--martyr fires--
Towers toppling to ruin, palaces,
Vast columned temples, and triumphal arch,
Fair hanging gardens, walls magnificent,
Resolved to dust by time--as summer's sun
Resolves again a fleecy cloud to mist.
Yet sometimes even here the spectral light
Broadens and brightens into sunny day,
And the soft winds (the sweeter for the war
Of elements,) blow thence to us Legends,--
Traditions fair of noble hearts as true,
Of honor pure, of love as sacred--deep--
Of valor great--of homes as fair and dear,
As fresher, better modern days have known.
I love the Legend of the Sleepers Seven,
Which comes from days so near the Manger--Cross,