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Each small gleam was a voice, A lantern voice -- In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold. A chorus of colours came over the water; The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered, No pines crooned on the hills, The blue night was elsewhere a silence, When the chorus of colours came over the water, Little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold. Small glowing pebbles Thrown on the dark plane of evening Sing good ballads of God And eternity, with soul’s rest. Little priests, little holy fathers, None can doubt the truth of your hymning, When the marvellous chorus comes over the water, Songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.
Stephen Crane’s other poems: