The Poems of Henry Van Dyke

Excerpt

THE AFTER-ECHO

How long the echoes love to play
  Around the shore of silence, as a wave
  Retreating circles down the sand!
  One after one, with sweet delay,
The mellow sounds that cliff and island gave,
  Have lingered in the crescent bay,
  Until, by lightest breezes fanned,
They float far off beyond the dying day
      And leave it still as death.
        But hark,—
      Another singing breath
    Comes from the edge of dark;
      A note as clear and slow
    As falls from some enchanted bell,
    Or spirit, passing from the world below,
      That whispers back, Farewell.

      So in the heart,
    When, fading slowly down the past,
      Fond memories depart,
    And each that leaves it seems the last;
    Long after all the rest are flown,
    Returns a solitary tone,—
    The after-echo of departed years,—
    And touches all the soul to tears.

1871.

A tear that trembles for a little while
Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world
Wavers within its circle like a dream,
Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb
Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.

A smile that hovers round a mouth beloved,
Like the faint pulsing of the Northern Light,
And grows in silence to an amber dawn
Born in the sweetest depths of trustful eyes,
Is dearer to the soul than sun or star.

A joy that falls into the hollow heart
From some far-lifted height of love unseen,
Unknown, makes a more perfect melody
Than hidden brooks that murmur in the dusk,
Or fall athwart the cliff with wavering gleam.

Ah, not for their own sake are earth and sky
And the fair ministries of Nature dear,
But as they set themselves unto the tune
That fills our life; as light mysterious
Flows from within and glorifies the world.

For so a common wayside blossom, touched
With tender thought, assumes a grace more sweet
Than crowns the royal lily of the South;
And so a well-remembered perfume seems
The breath of one who breathes in Paradise.

1872.

THREE ALPINE SONNETS

I

THE GLACIER

At dawn in silence moves the mighty stream,
  The silver-crested waves no murmur make;
  But far away the avalanches wake
The rumbling echoes, dull as in a dream;
Their momentary thunders, dying, seem
  To fall into the stillness, flake by flake,
  And leave the hollow air with naught to break
The frozen spell of solitude supreme.

At noon unnumbered rills begin to spring
  Beneath the burning sun, and all the walls
Of all the ocean-blue crevasses ring
  With liquid lyrics of their waterfalls;
As if a poet's heart had felt the glow
Of sovereign love, and song began to flow.

Zermatt, 1872.

II

THE SNOW-FIELD

White Death had laid his pall upon the plain,
  And crowned the mountain-peaks like monarchs dead;
  The vault of heaven was glaring overhead
With pitiless light that filled my eyes with pain;
And while I vainly longed, and looked in vain
  For sign or trace of life, my spirit said,
  “Shall any living thing that dares to tread
This royal lair of Death escape again?”

But even then I saw before my feet
  A line of pointed footprints in the snow:
  Some roving chamois, but an hour ago,
Had passed this way along his journey fleet,
And left a message from a friend unknown
To cheer my pilgrim-heart, no more alone.

Zermatt, 1872.

III

MOVING BELLS

I love the hour that comes, with dusky hair
  And dewy feet, along the Alpine dells,
  To lead the cattle forth. A thousand bells
Go chiming after her across the fair
And flowery uplands, while the rosy flare
  Of sunset on the snowy mountain dwells,
  And valleys darken, and the drowsy spells
Of peace are woven through the purple air.

Dear is the magic of this hour: she seems
  To walk before the dark by falling rills,
And lend a sweeter song to hidden streams;
  She opens all the doors of night, and fills
With moving bells the music of my dreams,
  That wander far among the sleeping hills....