III
“Life Ever Seems as from Its Present Site”
Life ever seems as from its present siteIt aimed to lure us. Mountains of the pastIt melts, with all their crags and caverns vast,Into a purple cloud! Across the nightWhich hides what is to be, it shoots a lightAll rosy with the yet unrisen dawn.Not the near daisies, but yon distant heightAttracts us, lying on this emerald lawn.And always, be the landscape what it may—Blue, misty hill or sweep of glimmering plain—It is the eye’s endeavor still to gainThe fine, faint limit of the bounding day.God, haply, in this mystic mode, would fainHint of a happier home, far, far away!