A GOLD fringe on the purpling hem
Of hills the river runs,

As down its long, green valley falls
The last of summer's suns.
Along its tawny gravel-bed
Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
As if its meadow levels felt

The hurry of the hill,

Noiseless between its banks of green
From curve to curve it slips;
The drowsy maple-shadows rest
Like fingers on its lips.

A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,
Unstoried and unknown;

The ursine legend of its name
Prowls on its banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn
As ever Yarrow knew,

Or, under rainy Irish skies,

By Spenser's Mulla grew;

And through the gaps of leaning trees

Its mountain cradle shows:

The gold against the amethyst,

The green against the rose.

Touched by a light that hath no name,
A glory never sung,

Aloft on sky and mountain wall
Are God's great pictures hung.

How changed the summits vast and old!
No longer granite-browed,

They melt in rosy mist; the rock

Is softer than the cloud;

The valley holds its breath; no leaf
Of all its elms is twirled:

The silence of eternity

Seems falling on the world.

The pause before the breaking seals
Of mystery is this;

Yon miracle-play of night and day
Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills

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