The poems of Emma Lazarus Author:Emma Lazarus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EPOCHS. " Tin epoch! of onr life we not In the vidble facU, but In the dent thought by the wyide a we walk." — KmK. I. YOUTH. Sweet empty sky of June wi... more »thout a stain, Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills, Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain, That each dark copse and hollow overfills ; The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills, Weeds delicate - flowered, white and pink and gold, A murmur and a singing manifold. The gray, austere old earth renews her youth With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze. How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth, While all is fresh as in the early days! What simple things be these the soul to raise To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat, With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet. On such a golden morning forth there floats, Between the soft earth and the softer sky, In the warm air adust with glistening motes, The mystic winged and flickering butterfly, A human soul, that hovers giddily Among the gardens of earth's paradise, Nor dreams of fairer fields or loftier skies. II. REGRET. Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge, Reddening the road and deepening the green On wide, blurred lawn, and in close - tangled sedge; Veiling in gray the landscape stretched be tween These low broad meadows andxthe pale hills seen But dimly on the far horizon's edge. In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies, Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun Might any moment break, no sorrow lies, No note of grief in swollen brooks that run, No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes. Only a tender, unnamed half-regret For the lost beauty of the gracious morn ; A yearning aspiration, fainter yet, For brighte...« less