A Dream

Behold an endless evening over land That lapped in vast vales rises up afar Into the frozen mountains; evening brimmed With silence, so miraculously clear That crevices in peaks of distant stone And rust--red boughs of cedars, at the foot Of those remote and voiceless waterfalls, Which down the black steeps of lone gorges plunge, Are shaped distinct unto the wondering eye; And the mind, seeing, notes not how 'tis fair, But throned in languor has already summ'd All the vain journey thither. Not a sound Near by; no motion lifts a single leaf, Nor stirs one cold stalk of the sappy spurge And powdery hemlock, nor 'mid clustered reeds The peeping heads of certain dim blue flowers Mirrored in water idle as themselves. And she that sits upon the bank, whose head Droops toward her shoulder, whose full lips are closed, And whose wide eyes seem vacant, yet contain Profound remembrance sunken like a wreck Beneath gray seas, is she of this entranced And glimmering land the sole inhabitant?