Book of verses / Edgar Lee Masters [electronic text]

LINES WRITTEN IN THE DESPLAINES FOREST

THE sun has sunk below the level plain, And yet above the forest's leafy gloom The glory of the evening lightens still, Smooth as a mirror is the river's face With Heaven's light, and all its radiant clouds And shadows which against the river's shoreAlready are as night. From some retreat Obscure and lonely, evening's saddest bird Whistles, and beyond the water comes The musical reply, and silence reigns—

Save for the noisy chorus of the frogs, And undistinguished sounds of faint portent That night has come. There is a rustic bridgeWhich spans the stream, from which we look below At Heaven above; 'till revery reclaims The mind from hurried thought and merges it Into the universal mind which broods O'er such a scene. Strange quietude o'espreads The restless flame of being, and the soul Beholds its source and destiny and feels Not sorrowful to sink into the breast Of that large life whereof it is a part. What are we? But the question is not solved

Here in the presence of intensest thought;Where nature stills the clamor of the world And leaves us in communion with ourselves.Hence to the strivings of the clear-eyed day What take we that shall mitigate the pangs That each soul is alone, and that all friends Gentle and wise and good can never soothe The ache of that sub-consciousness which is Something unfathomed and unmedicined. Yet this it is which keeps us in the path

Of some ambition, cherished or pursued; The still, small voice that is not quieted By disregard, but ever speaks to us Its mandates while we wake or sleep, and asks A closer harmony with that great scheme Which is the music of the universe.

So as the cherubim of Heaven defend The realms of the unknown with flaming swords, Thence are we driven to the world which is Ours to be known through Art, who beckons us To excellence, and in her rarer moods Casts shadowy glances of serener lands; Where all the serious gods, removed from stress And interruption, build as we conceive;

In fellowship that knows not that reserve Which clouds the hearts of those who wish to live As they, in that large realm of perfect mind.