The violet and the rose,
Play lazy checkers on the evening air,
Slur moves into great lunging arcs,
'Tween peaks of stalwart slate,

The belly of the rolling hills,
Lies flat to frame the setting sun behind,
What glory in a scene,
What majesty at play.

Each corner of this human condition,
All mysteries of strength and servitude,
Of lowliness and rumbling renown,
Find final glory in one glorious life,

Our Lord perfecting this limped gait of ours,
Swept up from womb to roman cross and grave,
Through laughter and great sorrows' claws,
He took the depths of us and set them true.

Violent winds and smokey skies,
Become a fated audience above,
The unmoved hills which fix themselves,
A sliver of the starlight for a coat.

At moment ceaseless drops take pause,
In time for all the whispers of the trees,
The sky too stills like unpolished marble,
I find in it a simple peace.

The heavens' treasuries are bust,
Unseamed they spill twice over all,
So formless lose all measure of restraint,
And we are made too rich.

The ripples of the land make for,
Old glacial keepsakes. Tiding from,
An age when giants walked the plains,
When iron roots splayed out beneath,
Not irrigating clouds but fierce,
Despotic tides in centenary march.

The hushed shivers of windswept trees,
Become a distant patter on the grass,
Like all such layering applause,
The many sounds transcend their frailer frames,
Again become so highly changed,
Harsh knocks to calm in shadows of great hills.

By fabric chairs on dewy grass,
The brittle air pervades from high,
Unfolding from mounting forests,
Arrayed in pews like earnest choirs,
The morning sun burns fiercely as they rise,
Theirs is the birdsong ushering the day.

Departing from The Lakes I leave enrapt,
These gentle monarchs in heather fitted,
So kissing every blushing sky they fall,
Upon the napes of clouds with deepest care.