Yonder bird, 



Which floats, as if at rest, 



In those blue tracts above the thunder, where 



No vapors cloud the stainless air, 



And never sound is heard, 



Unless at such rare time 



When, from the City of the Blest, 



Rings down some golden chime, 



Sees not from his high place, 



So vast a cirque of summer space 



As widens round me in one mighty field, 



Which, rimmed by seas and sands, 



Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams 



Of gray Atlantic dawns; 



And, broad as realms made up of many lands, 



Is lost afar 



Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns 



Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams 



Against the Evening Star ! 



And lo ! 



To the remotest point of sight, 



Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, 



The endless field is white; 



And the whole landscape glows, 



For many a shining league away, 



With such accumulated light 



As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day ! 



From "The Cotton Boll," by Henry Timrod. 



166954 



