Henry Timrod - III. "Life Ever Seems as from Its Present Site" lyrics

Life ever seems as from its present site It aimed to lure us. Mountains of the past It melts, with all their crags and caverns vast, Into a purple cloud! Across the night Which hides what is to be, it shoots a light All rosy with the yet unrisen dawn. Not the near daisies, but yon distant height Attracts us, lying on this emerald lawn. And always, be the landscape what it may -- Blue, misty hill or sweep of glimmering plain -- It is the eye's endeavor still to gain The fine, faint limit of the bounding day. God, haply, in this mystic mode, would fain Hint of a happier home, far, far away!