At morn I saw the level plain
So rich and small beneath my feet,
A sapphire sea without a stain,
And fields of golden-waving wheat;
Lingering I said, "At noon I'll be
At peace by that sweet-scented tide.
How far, how fair my course shall be,
Before I come to the Eventide!"
Where is it fled, that radiant plain?
I stumble now in miry ways;
Dark clouds drift landward, big with rain,
And lonely moors their summits raise.
On, on with hurrying feet I range,
And left and right in the dumb hillside
Grey gorges open, drear and strange,
And so I come to the Eventide!