Afar in the magical West,
In the golden-amber West,
Under a shimmer of mist-air bright, —
Translucent vapor of chrysollite, —
Are the Islands of the Blest,
Is the Land of Eternal Rest,
Where the weary arms are folded on a calm, unruffled breast.
The sun of our garish day
Goes out of our garish day
Into that dream-land’s atmosphere,
And backward flings over sunset here
Some hue of its mellower ray,
That breaks into golden spray
On the shore of that Island Eden, and lures the soul away!
The glow of its beamless sun,
A warm, autumnal sun,
In its everlasting evening haze,
That will not burn, that will not daze,
Looks forth over labor done,
Over lotus dreams begun,
As the tender eye of a mother on her nodding little one.
There, hearts that were weary and worn,
World-weary and sorrow-worn,
Sleep on in a murmur of cadent song
That is ever and ever more sweet than strong,
On wings of a zephyr borne
Into fainter depths that scorn
The subtle and far retrieval of echo’s answering horn!
And eyes that in tears before
They closed here, long before
Had looked their last on a living hope,
Have folded under the lid’s calm slope
Such visions of peace once more,
Long peace on a stormless shore,
That the old earth-memory slumbers, too restful to deplore!
‘Tis the golden Sabbath Land,
The misty-mantled land,
Where the very air is a slumbrous hum,
And the light itself a mellower gloom,
Where the pool of the lily is fanned,
By her moving odors bland,
And dream is in all the nodding flowers that over its mirror stand.
Hesperia of the Blest!
Sweet Islands of the Blest!
Thou land of a deep, divine repose,
Better than earth, the sad earth knows, —
We yearn to the amber West,
When the day dies at its best,
And the beacon of thy silver star burns over the misty crest!
