Beyond the Hills of Dream

by William Wilfred Campbell

 

Morning on the Shore

 
THE lake is blue with morning; and the sky
     Sweet, clear, and burnished as an orient pearl.
     High in its vastness scream and skim and whirl
White gull-flocks where the gleaming beaches die
Into dim distance, where great marshes lie.
5
     Far in ashore the woods are warm with dreams,
     The dew-wet road in ruddy sunlight gleams,
The sweet, cool earth, the clear blue heaven on high.
 
Across the morn a carolling school-boy goes,
Filling the world with youth to heaven’s stair;
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     Some chattering squirrel answers from his tree;
But down beyond the headland, where ice-floes
Are great in winter, pleading in mute prayer,
     A dead, drowned face stares up immutably.