Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/307

Draw forth the folded strands, Than which the trembling line, By whose frail help yon startled spider fled Down the tall spear grass from his swinging bed, Is scarce more fine; And as the tangled skein Unravels in my hands, Betwixt me and the noonday light, A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles The landscape broadens on my sight, As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell Like that which, in the ocean shell, With mystic sound, Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round, And turns some city lane Into the restless main, With all his capes and isles! Yonder bird, Which floats, as if at rest, In those blue tracts above the thunder, where No vapors cloud the stainless air, And never sound is heard, Unless at such rare time When, from the City of the Blest, Rings down some golden chime, Sees not from his high place So vast a cirque of summer space As widens round me in one mighty field, Which, rimmed by seas and sands, Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams Of gray Atlantic dawns; And, broad as realms made up of many lands,