Morning in the Pines
By George Sterling
Hushed is the hour, the shadows long.
As mingling shadows westward slant,
Your lyric gaze is like a song
Far in my heart, significant.
Draw closer, now, and share with me
The soundless peace of early day.
Ah, loneliness and mystery
Of mountains watched from far away!
Among the pines the grass is bright
With scarlet gleam or flash of blue—
Mutations of arrested light
In reddening leaf and fane of dew.
And russet needles idly fall—
Touched by a soft and voiceless breeze—
On flowers whose fragrance can recall
Only unhappy memories.
This joy is pain. Look upward, girl!
Say where that ocean cloud is bound—
A vast and shadow-haunted pearl,
Remote in morning's pure profound.
All, all is passing—cloud and flower:
The very hills at last shall fade.
In all the years we find this hour,
In all the worlds this quiet glade.
What need to know the hidden dew
To meaning, if a meaning be?
I find the mystery led to you;
O, may you find its touch in me!
This alien glory of the earth
Is like a shadow on the sense;
You, you alone, can make of worth
Beauty's divine indifference.
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