Birds and Nature, Vol. X, No 5, December 1901 — The Hill Summit

THE HILL SUMMIT.

This feast-day of the sun, his altar there In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song;

And I have loitered in the vale too long And gaze now a belated worshipper.

Yet may I not forget that I was ’ware, So journeying, of his face at intervals Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,— A fiery bush with coruscating hair.

And now that I have climbed and won this height, I must tread downward through the sloping shade And travel the bewildered tracks till night.

Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed And see the gold air and the silver fade And the last bird fly into the last light.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.