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[368]
     Each colored like a topaz gem;
And the tall maple wears with them
     The coronal, which autumn gives,
The brief, bright sign of ruin near,
     The hectic of a dying year!

The hermit priest, who lingers now
     On the Bald Mountain's shrubless brow,
The gray and thunder-smitten pile
     Which marks afar the Desert Isle,1
While gazing on the scene below,
     May half forget the dreams of home,
That nightly with his slumbers come,—
     The tranquil skies of sunny France,
The peasant's harvest song and dance,
     The vines around the hillsides wreathing,
The soft airs midst their clusters breathing,
     The wings which dipped, the stars which shone
Within thy bosom, blue Garonne!
     And round the Abbey's shadowed wall,
At morning spring and even-fall,
     Sweet voices in the still air singing,—
The chant of many a holy hymn,—
     The solemn bell of vespers ringing,—
And hallowed torchlight falling dim
     On pictured saint and seraphim!
For here beneath him lies unrolled,
     Bathed deep in morning's flood of gold,
A vision gorgeous as the dream
     Of the beatified may seem,
When, as his Church's legends say,
     Borne upward in ecstatic bliss,
The rapt enthusiast soars away
     Unto a brighter world than this:
A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale,—
     A moment's lifting of the veil!

Far eastward o'er the lovely bay,
     Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay;
And gently from that Indian town
     The verdant hillside slopes adown,
To where the sparkling waters play
     Upon the yellow sands below;
And shooting round the winding shores
     Of narrow capes, and isles which lie
Slumbering to ocean's lullaby,—
     With birchen boat and glancing oars,
The red men to their fishing go;
     While from their planting ground is borne
The treasure of the golden corn,
     By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow
Wild through the locks which o'er them flow,

1 Mt. Desert Island, the Bald Mountain upon which overlooks Frenchman's and Penobscot Bay. It was upon this island that the Jesuits made their earliest settlement.

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