MIDNIGHT IN CAMP

NIGHT in the unslumbering forest! From the free, Vast pinelands by the foot of man untrod,

Blows the wild wind, roaming rejoicingly This wilderness of God;

And the tall firs that all day long have flung Balsamic odors where the sunshine burned, Chant to its harping primal epics learned

When this old world was young.

Beyond the lake, white, girdling peaks uplift Untroubled brows to virgin skies afar, And o’er the uncertain water glimmers drift Of fitful cloud and star. Sure never day such mystic beauty held As sylvan midnight here in this surcease Of toil, when the kind darkness gives us peace Garnered from years of eld.

Lo! Hearken to the mountain waterfall Laughing adown its pathway to the glen

And nearer, in the cedars, the low call Of brook to brook again;

Voices that garish daytime may not know Wander at will along the bosky steeps, And silent, silver-footed moonlight creeps

Through the dim glades below.