_Indian Summer_

What touch hath set the breathing hills afire With amethyst, to quench them with a tear Of ecstasy? These common fields appear The consecrated home of hopes past number. So many visions, so entranced a slumber, Such dreams possess the noonday’s luminous sphere, That earth, content with knowing Heaven so near, Hath done with aspiration and desire.

In these unlooked-for hours of Truth’s clear reign Unjarring fitness hath surprised our strife. This radiance, that might seem to cheat the view With loveliness too perfect to be true, But shows this vexed and self-delusive life Ideals whereto our Real must attain.