Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1884-04-12
THE LOST PARADISE.
EIv1RA sYDNoR MILLER.


ELvIRA sYDNoR MILLER.
Beyond the sunset glory,
A land enchanted lies,
A land of song and story,
Al CLINE of cloudless skies;
And they who seek to find 1t,
Mid mists that have enshrined II,
And seas that surge behind,
Are lost to mortal eyes.
The shadows die and darken,
Along the sounding shore,
But they, who halt and hearken,
Find silence at the door,
Aye, gazing far DER yonder,
The gray-heads pause and ponder,
The fate of such as wandof,
And who return no more.
Like them have grown weary
OF earthly thoughts and things,
OF ways forlorn and dreary,
OF falls and dreams of springs;
/ pine to leave the squalor,
The sounds and songs SO hollow,
And with the sunset follow,
The lark that westward sings.
Beyond the days glad portals.
Beyond the sunset seas
There dwell the great immortalS
In the lost Hesperides:
No mist of earth e'er cumberS
The brightness of their slumberss
Where dreams in countless numbers
Fall soft, like blooms from trees.
The west wind hath no keenness
To chill the golden air,
The trees, in changeless greenness,
Make endless summer thore:
No darkness falls, ah, never,
No stars and darkness sever,
One light lives on forever,
And maketh all things fair.
The shores are glad with singing,
And songs from singing lips,
And birds from sOuthlands Winglng
That perch on masts of ships;
Wide fields of fern and clover,
The red light fiushes over,
While June, q restless rover,
Through greenest grasses slips.
The easements glow and glimmer
With shafts of flame and nre,
Whose brightness ne'er grows d1mmer'
Whose spIendor can not tire;
And where the light enlaces,
The sunsets shining places,
The gods immortal faces
Bend DER the lutte and Tyre.
Along the sea and river,
Strange songs serenely fall,
Like shafts from moonbeamS qu1Ver,
That pierce the leaves green wall
And, as each measure closes,
Tall ships, whose sails are roses
Whereon the spring reposes,
Sail on to harbors, all.
They are no noisy raalerS,
Who ply the bended oars,
For silent are the sailors,
Slow steering by these shores;
Their eyes are filled with wonder,
OF visions seen there under,
Beneath the waves dull thunder,
That sounds through corral doors.
Long blue hills rise to cover
The land that bends and dips
Meath skies that heave and hover,
To kiss the storm IS white lips
And on these hills are towers,
Song haunted faneS and bowers,
Knee-deep in fields of flowers,
Like lamps to guide the ships.
Revond the sunset PORTALS,
BeyoIld the hills that rises
III seek the great in4mortals
In climes of cloudless skies;
No voice of earth shall say to me,
No clinging hands delay me,
No spells that here betray me
To flee that paradise.
OH there when some moist Maytime
Makes meshes for the light,
Betwixt the dews and daytime
NV heart shall find delight;
And in those fadeless places,
Made glad by endless graces,
The otd-time forms anu races
Shall rise like dreams at night.
The voices blown and banished,
That sang so sweet OF yore,
The faces vailed and yan1Sed,
Shall smile as once before;
And old men, bowed and hoary,
Beneath the sunset glory
Shall link my name IN glory
With those who come no more