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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420592" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Norembega</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE winding way the serpent takes<br>The mystic water took,<br>From where, to count its beaded lakes,<br>The forest sped its brook.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,<br>For sun or stars to fall,<br>While evermore, behind, before,<br>Closed in the forest wall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The dim wood hiding underneath<br>Wan flowers without a name;<br>Life tangled with decay and death,<br>League after league the same.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unbroken over swamp and hill<br>The rounding shadow lay,<br>Save where the river cut at will<br>A pathway to the day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beside that track of air and light,<br>Weak as a child unweaned,<br>At shut of day a Christian knight<br>Upon his henchman leaned.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The embers of the sunset's fires<br>Along the clouds burned down;<br>'I see,' he said, 'the domes and spires<br>Of Norembega town.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Alack! the domes, O master mine,<br>Are golden clouds on high;<br>Yon spire is but the branchless pine<br>That cuts the evening sky.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these<br>But chants and holy hymns?'<br>'Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees<br>Though all their leafy limbs.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Is it a chapel bell that fills<br>The air with its low tone?'<br>'Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,<br>The insect's vesper drone.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The Christ be praised!--He sets for me<br>A blessed cross in sight!'<br>'Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree<br>With two gaunt arms outright!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,<br>It mattereth not, my knave;<br>Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,<br>The cross is for my grave!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'My life is sped; I shall not see<br>My home-set sails again;<br>The sweetest eyes of Normandie<br>Shall watch for me in vain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yet onward still to ear and eye<br>The baffling marvel calls;<br>I fain would look before I die<br>On Norembega's walls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'So, haply, it shall be thy part<br>At Christian feet to lay<br>The mystery of the desert's heart<br>My dead hand plucked away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Leave me an hour of rest; go thou<br>And look from yonder heights;<br>Perchance the valley even now<br>Is starred with city lights.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The henchman climbed the nearest hill,<br>He saw nor tower nor town,<br>But, through the drear woods, lone and still,<br>The river rolling down.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He heard the stealthy feet of things<br>Whose shapes he could not see,<br>A flutter as of evil wings,<br>The fall of a dead tree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The pines stood black against the moon,<br>A sword of fire beyond;<br>He heard the wolf howl, and the loon<br>Laugh from his reedy pond.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He turned him back: 'O master dear,<br>We are but men misled;<br>And thou hast sought a city here<br>To find a grave instead.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'As God shall will! what matters where<br>A true man's cross may stand,<br>So Heaven be o'er it here as there<br>In pleasant Norman land?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'These woods, perchance, no secret hide<br>Of lordly tower and hall;<br>Yon river in its wanderings wide<br>Has washed no city wall;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yet mirrored in the sullen stream<br>The holy stars are given<br>Is Norembega, then, a dream<br>Whose waking is in Heaven?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'No builded wonder of these lands<br>My weary eyes shall see;<br>A city never made with hands<br>Alone awaiteth me--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''_Urbs Syon mystica_;' I see<br>Its mansions passing fair,<br>'/Condita caelo/;' let me be,<br>Dear Lord, a dweller there!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Above the dying exile hung<br>The vision of the bard,<br>As faltered on his failing tongue<br>The song of good Bernard.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The henchman dug at dawn a grave<br>Beneath the hemlocks brown,<br>And to the desert's keeping gave<br>The lord of fief and town.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Years after, when the Sieur Champlain<br>Sailed up the unknown stream,<br>And Norembega proved again<br>A shadow and a dream,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He found the Norman's nameless grave<br>Within the hemlock's shade,<br>And, stretching wide its arms to save,<br>The sign that God had made,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot<br>And made it holy ground<br>He needs the earthly city not<br>Who hath the heavenly found.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420592" data-title="Norembega de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="THE winding way the serpent takes
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.

A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,
For sun or stars to fall,
While evermore, behind, before,
Closed in the forest wall...."></div>
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