A Morning Picture

Scarcely the keen air rustles in the trees,

         But, sharply drawn against the pallid sky,

         Blue as Damascus still the waters lie,

Touched by the pencil of the morning breeze.

Far, misty headlands, severed from the seas

         By a pale glimmer, cheer the uncertain eye –

         Seeming to float and blend their darker dye

With the blanched heavens, till lost by faint degrees.

         The spectral barques [sic] are wafts of shivering wings

Hovering, but touching not, or idle twist

         Of a dissolving vapor still renewed;

The sea denies them as of alien things,

         The sky accepts them as its own dim mist,

And dreamers greet in them their fair similitude.