Poems (Sill)/Two Views of it
WORLD, O glorious world, good-by!"Time but to think it—one wild cryUnuttered, a heart-wrung farewellTo sky and wood and flashing stream,All gathered in a last swift gleam,As the crag crumbled, and he fell.
TWO VIEWS OF IT.
WORLD, O glorious world, good-by!"Time but to think it—one wild cryUnuttered, a heart-wrung farewellTo sky and wood and flashing stream,All gathered in a last swift gleam,As the crag crumbled, and he fell.But lo! the thing was wonderful!After the echoing crash, a lull:The great fir on the slope belowHad spread its mighty mother-arm,And caught him, springing like a bowOf steel, and lowered him safe from harm,
'T was but an instant's dark and daze:Then, as he felt each limb was sound, And slowly from the swooning hazeThe dizzy trees stood still that whirled,And the familiar sky and ground,There grew with them across his brainA dull regret: "So, world, dark world,You are come back again!"