Nature

Slow falls the eve; the hour is grave, profound.
The sweet, sad cuckoo makes the air resound
With his two notes with springtide languor filled;
And the tall pines, by eddying breezes thrilled,
Tremble, as ocean echoes in a shell.
Else all is hushed.
I walk with heart unwell.
Slowly the shadow on my path descends.
I loiter o'er familiar forest bends,
Whose calm grows deeper with the darkening west,
O such a calm I feel my own unrest
Melt in the peace of landscapes unforeseen;
And in the east eve clothes with azure sheen
The slender uplands with their billowing chain,
Whose silhouettes shut in the distant plain;
And on their tops their cloak of forests gleams
Through the thin veil of mist that o'er them streams.
And all is vague, the ideal form of things
Shimmers divine in deep imaginings,
Gladdening the eye with grace ineffable;
Seeing them, in the enchanted world we dwell
Of soulless, happy beings who possess
The calm we cry for of forgetfulness,
We who desire in desolate hearts that pine,
This sovereign gift of peace that makes divine;
And most at eve, when quiet nights of spring
Enchant the sky, the forest, and the ling.
The forest's darkness sways me at its will;
And with a holy and unfathomed thrill
I feel a dizzy longing grow in me:
O not to think! nor wish! O not to be!...