The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[33] While through these elm-boughs wet with rain
     The sunset's golden walls are seen,
With clover-bloom and yellow grain
     And wood-draped hill and stream between;

I long to know if scenes like this
     Are hidden from an angel's eyes;
If earth's familiar loveliness
     Haunts not thy heaven's serener skies.

For sweetly here upon thee grew
     The lesson which that beauty gave,
The ideal of the pure and true
     In earth and sky and gliding wave.

And it may be that all which lends
     The soul an upward impulse here,
With a diviner beauty blends,
     And greets us in a holier sphere.

Through groves where blighting never fell
     The humbler flowers of earth may twine;
And simple draughts from childhood's well
     Blend with the angel-tasted wine.

But be the prying vision veiled,
     And let the seeking lips be dumb,
Where even seraph eyes have failed
     Shall mortal blindness seek to come?

We only know that thou hast gone,
     And that the same returnless tide
Which bore thee from us still glides on,
     And we who mourn thee with it glide.