Lucy Larcom

Withdrawal, J.G.W. September 7, 1892

WAS it thy step on the mountain-side?
Was it thy voice in the air? —
Strange beauty illumined the landscape wide;
The world lay in heaven-light there.
And a whisper, a breath, through my trouble went; —
Did a soul speak, passing by? —
"Ah, see how the heights and the levels are blent,
How the peaks are dissolved in the sky!
"One tender suffusion of splendor is this, —
Blue summits and meadows green!
So peaceful, so soft the withdrawal is
Of a life into Light unseen."
— Thy spirit was passing — I knew it not —
Beyond the light of the sun!
And the world thou hast left has a radiance caught
From the glory that thou hast won.
And my soul arises and follows thine
Up the luminous heavenward slope;
For thy beautiful footprints make earth divine
With the glow of a deathless hope.