I HAVE watched the glow on the morning skyline
When the kindling spring from out of the palm-isles
Came, with lilt of lutes and with touch of timbrels,
Winged as the swallow.

Summer I have seen o'er the fertile loam-lands
Spread its gleaming gold and its burnished amber, —
Barley, wheat and rye in the soft winds waving,
Ripe for the reapers.

I have walked with autumn down through the orchards,
Where lay heaped the fruit with its veins of crimson,
Globes that vied with all of the hues of sunset,
Harvests ambrosial.

Winter I have known, with its shroud of silence,
Vestal, virginal, clad in its arctic ermine,
When the midnight brightened the frosty sky with
Torches auroral.

Just the shifting sands in the Year's great hour-glass,
Turned by Time who works at the Master's bidding,
Where we mark, if we look with eyes unclouded,
The Eternal Presence!