Rural School Leaflet 



1245 



MY PURPLE HILLS 

 L. H. Bailey 



Far over the valley are purple hills 



Afloat in a twilight of haze; 

 I think there are fountains and falling rills 



And aisles a-dream in th' forest ways; 

 I think there are birds with a song that thrills 



And winds that roam in th' quiet days. 



But the space between has a deep morass 

 With tangles and bogs that I fear to pass; 

 There are quaking hollows and sinking sands 

 And white burning suns on the sterile lands; 

 There are bottomless streams with luckless shores 

 And hedges of briars on the log-piled floors ; 

 Blind depths I must cross and cliffs I must scale 

 That stand like walls in the dread intervale. 



Yet I think that I see the falling rills 

 In the depths of the twilight bar, 



And I listen to catch the song that thrills 

 Falling down from the aisles afar; — 



I am journ'ying on to my purple hills, 

 And over the hills is a star. 



