AES266 In Gold Lacquer

Gold are the great trees overhead,

And gold the leaf-strewn grass,

As though a cloth of gold were spread

To let a seraph pass.

And where the pageant should go by,

Meadow and wood and stream,

The world is all of lacquered gold,

Expectant as a dream.

Against the sunset's burning gold,

Etched in dark monotone

Behind its alley of grey trees

And gateposts of grey stone,

Stands the Old Manse, about whose eaves

An air of mystery clings,

Abandoned to the lonely peace

Of bygone ghostly things.

In molten gold the river winds

With languid sweep and turn,

Beside the red-gold wooded hill

Yellowed with ash and fern.

The streets are tiled with gold-green shade

And arched with fretted gold,

Ecstatic aisles that richly thread

This minster grim and old.

The air is flecked with filtered gold,—

The shimmer of romance

Whose ageless glamour still must hold

The world as in a trance,

Pouring o'er every time and place

Light of an amber sea,

The spell of all the gladsome things

That have been or shall be.

-Bliss Carman-