Classic Poem

Ah, could I put this viewless strife aside,
And lie forever on a sunny hill,
And see the unregarded river glide
Through the small plain, and it be morning still!...

I watch the clear blank houses standing low,
Their windows gleaming black in the pale sun.
The walls grow brighter; unseen ripples flow
Up to the eaves, where smoky shadows run.

Around, the fields are greener, and the trees
Their slowly wakening branches bend more down;
Unquiet memories stir beneath the leas,
Whose knolls rise like a green deserted town.

Along the roads the tiny people move,
Between the shining meadows, far and clear.
They go towards the mountains; and above
The ridge the fresh young firmament looks near.

Now from the hills a slow unwinding sound
Comes of bells swinging in a distant dale.
Through unseen valleys nearer it is wound,
Loudens, and falls upon the sunlit vale. . . .

And all at once those fields and mountains seem
A little gleaming strip of grass and light,
Bordering the million-fold and shapeless dream
Which keeps our souls apart in strangest night.

We seek in inner cloud our formless way,
In mystery without ground, beginning, end.
And when we lift our eyes we see the day
Astonished, and stand motionless, and attend.