WHEN the low sun descends on Hamlet hill
And this my maple throws a longer line
Of lengthening shadow down across the slope,
Then has a day departed, casting yet
A lingering light from sidelong slopes and hills
That run into the west. Much would I love
One passing day to live beneath my tree,
And there within its shadow on the earth
Move with the moving sun a mutual course.
First in the dawning is the crystal light
Scarce sprinkled o'er the hill, while all the heaven
Sheds seeming equal brightness on the world;
But after comes the round, revealing sun,
To mark his influence and define the earth,
Giving my tree its shadow on the ground.
And therein would I rest and through the day
Follow it lengthening downward past the noon;
See the light grasses and the browsèd tufts
Of pasture herbage tremble in the sun,
Pale upland asters, dusty goldenrod,
And all the autumn flowering of the fields;
Then feel them sink to quietness within
The slow advancing shadow. I should find
A joy in the light liftings of the leaves,
Breeze-shifted shadows trembling, little rays
Of unexpected light along the ground.
Then as the day advancèd to its fall
And this my maple's shadow crept along
Downward, I should forget the lesser life
Of grass blade and of sunny pebble-stone,
Feeling the great fact of the day's decline,
The coming of the hour when all the hill
Would cast its shadow; of the later night,
The shadow of the earth. Thus would I live,
And one day thus bid welcome and depart.