It is a day lost from some perfect June
And set within the middle of November.
It has the golden mystery of September,
And the blue skies of a warm summer noon.
There is a low wind singing an old tune,
Sung once by tender winds that I remember;
The soft, high sun burns like a crimson ember
Deep in the blue flame of the air. . . . So soon
A gray and lonely morrow will arise,
This fair day well is worth the holding fast.
Behold! how dreamily the mute sea lies
Below; how seabirds lazily drift past;
And how the mountains, white for centuries,
Shine on the sky. . . . O day, that thou might’st last!
“A Perfect Day” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).