In Tuolumne Meadows

I Love to sit in the sun
And watch the foaming Lyell
Leap over its granite bed.
I love these days that run
On a burnished golden dial
With the blue sky overhead.

I love to waken at night
And whisper the stars above me,
And feel the fingering breeze.
So still is the world, so right,
Where even the black pines love me,
And the white moon guards my ease.

I love the upward ways
To the sun-tipped crest of the mountains
High over the billowy world;
Where the wind sings hymns of praise,
And the snows break into fountains,
And life is a flag unfurled.

I love—ah, beloved, what bliss
Would shatter the ice like a river
And sing all the way to the sea,
If the world could be lost for this,
And you from your sorrow forever
Could rest on the heart of me !