The Thunderstorm
DEEP, fiery clouds o'ercast the sky,
Dead stillness reigns in air,
There is not e'en a breeze, on high
The gossamer to bear.
The woods are hushed, the waves at rest,
The lake is dark and still,
Reflecting, on its shadowy breast,
Each form of rock and hill.
The lime-leaf waves not in the grove,
Nor rose-tree in the bower;
The birds have ceased their songs of love,
Awed by the threatening hour.
'T is noon;–yet nature's calm profound
Seems as at midnight deep;
–But hark! what peal of awful sound
Breaks on creation's sleep?
The thunder bursts!–its rolling might
Seems the firm hills to shake;
And in terrific splendor bright,
The gathered lightnings break.
Yet fear not, shrink not thou, my child!
Though by the bolt's descent
Were the tall cliffs in ruins piled,
And the wide forests rent.
Doth not thy God behold thee still,
With all-surveying eye?
Doth not his power all nature fill,
Around, beneath, on high?
Know, hadst thou eagle-pinions free,
To track the realms of air,
Thou couldst not reach a spot where He
Would not be with thee there!
In the wide city's peopled towers,
On the vast ocean's plains,
'Midst the deep woodland's loneliest bowers,
Alike th' Almighty reigns!
Then fear not, though the angry sky
A thousand darts should cast;–
Why should we tremble, e'en to die,
And be with Him at last?
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Dark, Blue Sea
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.-
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou,
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless and sublime-
The image of eternity-the throne
Of the invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, ocean! And my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here.
Love's Infinity
Dear lowly flower that liftest up
Among the grass thy golden cup,
I take thee from thy earthly bed
And plant thee in my heart instead.
Ye ocean waves that mount on high
As emulous of the lofty sky,
'Tis in my breast ye onward sweep
Which as the sea is wide and deep.
Great sun, from thy supernal height
On flower and wave who pourest light,
My soul doth clasp thee in the skies,
And thou in me dost set and rise.
O thou I love, thy lips of fire
Have waked an infinite desire,
And unto all things as to thee
Flames out the love that burns in me.
poem by William Gay
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The Wounded Eagle
Eagle! this is not thy sphere!
Warrior-bird, what seek'st thou here?
Wherefore by the fountain's brink
Doth thy royal pinion sink?
Wherefore on the violet's bed
Lay'st thou thus thy drooping head?
Thou that hold'st the blast in scorn,
Thou that wear'st the wings of mourn.
Eagle! wilt thou not arise?
Look upon thine own bright skies!
Lift thy glance! the fiery sun
There his pride pf place has won,
And the mountain lark is there,
And sweet sound hath fill'd the air:
Hast thou left that realm on high?
-Oh, it can be but to die!
Eagle! Eagle! thou hast bowed
From thine empire o'er the cloud!
Thou that hadst ethereal birth,
Thou hast stoop'd too near the earth,
And the hunter's shaft hath found thee,
And the toils of death have bound thee,
Wherefore didst thou leave thy place,
Creature of a kingly race?
Wert thou weary of thy throne?
Was the sky's dominion lone?
Chill and lone it well might be,
Yet that mighty wing was free!
Now the chain is o'er thee cast:
From thy heart the blood flows fast,
Woe for gifted souls and high!
Is not such their destiny?
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Sabrina
Isle of the ocean, say, whence comest thou?
The smoke thy dark throne, and the blaze round thy brow;
The voice of the earthquake proclaims thee abroad,
And the deep, at thy coming, rolls darkly and loud.
From the breast of the ocean, the bed of the wave,
Thou hast burst into being, hast sprung from the grave;
A stranger, wild, gloomy, yet terribly bright,
Thou art clothed with the darkness, yet crowned with the light.
Thou comest in flames, thou hast risen in fire;
The wave is thy pillow, the tempest thy choir;
They will lull thee to sleep on the ocean's broad breast,
A slumb'ring volcano, an earthquake at rest.
Thou hast looked on the isle — thou hast looked on the wave —
Then hie thee again to thy deep, watery grave;
Go, quench thee in ocean, thou dark, nameless thing,
Thou spark from the fallen one's wide flaming wing.
poem by Lucretia Maria Davidson
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Introductory Verses
OH! blest art thou, whose steps may rove
Through the green paths of vale and grove,
Or, leaving all their charms below,
Climb the wild mountain's airy brow;
And gaze afar o'er cultured plains,
And cities with their stately fanes,
And forests, that beneath thee lie,
And ocean mingling with the sky.
For man can show thee nought so fair,
As Nature's varied marvels there;
And if thy pure and artless breast
Can feel their grandeur, thou art blest!
For thee the stream in beauty flows,
For thee the gale of summer blows,
And, in deep glen and wood-walk free,
Voices of joy still breathe for thee.
But happier far, if then thy soul
Can soar to Him who made the whole,
If to thine eye the simplest flower
Portray His bounty and His power.
If, in whate'er is bright or grand,
Thy mind can trace His viewless hand,
If Nature's music bid thee raise
Thy song of gratitude and praise;
If heaven and earth, with beauty fraught,
Lead to His throne thy raptured thought,
If there thou lov'st His love to read,
Then, wanderer, thou art blest indeed.
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze.
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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The Child’s Dream
Buried in childhood’s cloudless dreams, a fair-haired nursling lay,
A soft smile hovered round the lips as if still oped to pray;
And then a vision came to him, of beauty, strange and mild,
Such as may only fill the dreams of a pure sinless child.
Stood by his couch an angel fair, with radiant, glitt’ring wings
Of hues as bright as the living gems the fount to Heaven flings;
With loving smile he bent above the fair child cradled there,
While sounds of sweet seraphic power stole o’er the fragrant air.
“Child, list to me,” he softly said, “on mission high I’m here:
Sent by that Glorious One to whom Heav’n bows in loving fear;
I seek thee now, whilst thou art still on the threshold of earth’s strife,
To speak of what thou knowest not yet, this new and wond’rous life.
“Dost cling to it? dost find this earth a fair and lovely one?
Dost love its bright-dyed birds and flowers, its radiant golden sun?
I come to bid thee leave it all—to turn from its bright bloom,
And, having closed thine eyes in death, descend into the tomb.
“Thou shudderest, child! with restless gaze from me thou turn’st away;
’Mid summer flowers and singing birds wouldst thou remain to play;
Thou still wouldst bask in the dear light of thy fond father’s smile,
And on thy mother’s doating heart would linger yet awhile.
“’Tis well, sweet child, I blame thee not, but in spheres far away
Are blossoms lovelier far than those which tempt thee here to stay;
And if the love of parents fond with joy thy heart doth fill,
In those bright distant realms is One who loves thee better still!
“That One for thee in suffering lived—for thy sake, too, he died;
Oh! like the ocean is His love, as deep, my child, as wide.
Leave, then, this earth ere hideous sin thy spotless brow shall dim—
One struggling breath, one parting pang, and then thou’lt be with Him!”
A smile lit up the sleeper’s face, but soon it softly fled,
The rose leaf cheeks and lips grew wan—could it be the child was dead?
Yes, dead—and spared the ills of life, and in bright bliss above
The pure soul nestles in the light of God’s unbounded Love.
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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The Penitent's Return
My father's house once more,
In its own moonlight beauty! yet around,
Something, amidst the dewy calm profound,
Broods, never marked before!
Is it the brooding night?
Is it the shivery creeping on the air,
That makes the home, so tranquil and so fair,
O'erwhelming to my sight?
All solemnised it seems,
And still'd, and darkness in each time-worn hue,
Since the rich clustering roses met my view,
As now, by starry gleams.
And this high elm, where last
I stood and linger'd - where my sisters made
Our mother's bower, - I deem'd not that it cast
So far and dark a shade!
How spirit-like a tone
Sighs through yon tree! my father's place was there
At evening hours, while soft winds waved his hair!
Now those gray locks are gone!
My soul grows faint with fear!
E'en as if angel-steps had mark'd the sod,
I tremble where I move,-the voice of God
Is in the foliage here!
Is it indeed the night
That makes my home so awful! faithless hearted,
'Tis that from thine own bosom hath departed
The in-born gladdening light!
No outward thing is changed;
Only the joy of purity is fled,
And, long from nature's melodious estranged,
Thou hear'st their tones with dread.
Therefore, the calm abode
By the dark spirit is o'erhung with shade,-
And therefore, in the leaves, the voice of God
Makes thy sick heart afraid!
The night-flowers round that door,
Still breathe pure fragrance on th' untainted air,
Thou, thou alone, art worthy now no more
To pass and rest thee there!
And must I turn away?
Hark, hark! it is my mother's voice I hear,
Sadder than once it seem'd, yet soft and clear -
Doth she not seem to pray?
My name!-I caught the sound!
Oh! blessed tone of love - the deep, the mild,-
Mother, my mother! now receive thy child;
Take back the lost and found.
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Storm
Mark vi. 47-51.
Fear was within the tossing bark,
When stormy winds grew loud;
And waves came rolling high and dark,
And the tall mast was bowed.
And men stood breathless in their dread,
And baffled in their skill;
But One was there, who rose and said
To the wild sea, 'Be still!'
And the wind ceased - it ceased - that word
Pass'd through the gloomy sky;
The troubled billows knew their Lord,
And sank beneath His eye.
And silence settled on the deep,
And silence on the blast,
As when the righteous falls asleep,
When death's fierce throes are past.
Thou that didst rule the angry hour,
And tame the tempest's mood,
Oh! send Thy Spirit forth in power,
O'er our dark souls to brood!
Thou that didst bow the billows' pride,
Thy mandates to fulfil -
So speak to passion's raging tide,
Speak, and say, 'Peace, be still!'
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Asia: From Prometheus Unbound
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
We have past Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Proximity Of The Beloved One
I THINK of thee, whene'er the sun his beams
O'er ocean flings;
I think of thee, whene'er the moonlight gleams
In silv'ry springs.
I see thee, when upon the distant ridge
The dust awakes;
At midnight's hour, when on the fragile bridge
The wanderer quakes.
I hear thee, when yon billows rise on high,
With murmur deep.
To tread the silent grove oft wander I,
When all's asleep.
I'm near thee, though thou far away mayst be--
Thou, too, art near!
The sun then sets, the stars soon lighten me.
Would thou wert here!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Our Lady's Well
Fount of the woods! thou art hid no more,
From Heaven's clear eye, as in time of yore!
For the roof hath sunk from thy mossy walls,
And the sun's free glance on thy slumber falls;
And the dim tree-shadows across thee pass,
As the boughs are sway'd o'er thy silvery glass;
And the reddening leaves to thy breast are blown,
When the autumn wind hath a stormy tone;
And thy bubbles rise to the flashing rain-
Bright Fount! thou art nature's own again!
Fount of the vale! thou art sought no more
By the pilgrim's foot, as in time of yore,
When he came from afar, his beads to tell,
And to chant his hymn at Our Lady's Well.
There is heard no Ave through thy bowers,
Thou art gleaming lone 'midst thy water-flowers!
But the herd may drink from thy gushing wave,
And there may the reaper his forehead lave,
And the woodman seeks thee not in vain-
-Bright Fount! thou art nature's own again!
Fount of the Virgin's ruin'd shrine!
A voice that speaks of the past is thine!
It mingles the tone of a thoughtful sigh,
With the notes that ring through the laughing sky;
'Midst the mirthful song of the summer-bird,
And the sound of the breeze, it will yet be heard!
-Why is it that thus we may gaze on thee,
To the brilliant sunshine sparkling free?
-'Tis that all on earth is of Time's domain-
He hath made thee nature's own again!
Fount of the chapel with ages grey!
Thou art springing freshly amidst decay!
Thy rites are closed, and thy cross lies low,
And the changeful hours breathe o'er thee now!
Yet if at thine altar one holy thought
In man's deep spirit of old hath wrought;
If peace to the mourner hath here been given,
Or prayer, from a chasten'd heart, to Heaven,
Be the spot still hallow'd while Time shall reign,
Who hath made thee nature's own again!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Lime-tree Bower my Prison [Addressed to Charles Lamb, o
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.
Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.
A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Thou Flower Of Summer
When in summer thou walkest
In the meads by the river,
And to thyself talkest,
Dost thou think of one ever--
A lost and a lorn one
That adores thee and loves thee?
And when happy morn's gone,
And nature's calm moves thee,
Leaving thee to thy sleep like an angel at rest,
Does the one who adores thee still live in thy breast?
Does nature eer give thee
Love's past happy vision,
And wrap thee and leave thee
In fancies elysian?
Thy beauty I clung to,
As leaves to the tree;
When thou fair and young too
Looked lightly on me,
Till love came upon thee like the sun to the west
And shed its perfuming and bloom on thy breast.
poem by John Clare
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I dread the calm
I dread the calm in the morning of a mourn without a sound
It is a calm that comes to foster a greater grief
It is a calm light of dusk before ever dew was falling from leaves
It is a calm sinking in calm pattering to the ground
I fear the calm and scudding winds in the high wold
And on the dews the drench the gorse
And all the silvery gossamer
Shaken into gilded gold
Is it calm and still in the dusky light over great plains
That sweeps late and swiftly in autumn bowers
Of secluded farms and solitary towers
To merge with the bounding and the saint
Is it calm on the vast sea under the spangled silver sleep
The waves that sway in colossus to lull themselves to rest
And the dead calm in the deepening breast
Which heaves with the heaving deep
Yet calm is the mute peace in the meadow’s air
The forest gloom with loom of leaves that redden to fall
And in my chest if calm can ever dwell at all
If any calm is there, it is the calm of despair
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Written At Sea
What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?
Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?
Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.
Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.
Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.
I have my home in thee. Thy arms enfold
Me all night long, and I am rocked and rolled,
And thou art never weary of thy hold.
Thou art a woman in thy constancy,
And worthy better love than mine could be;
And yet, behold, I cannot suffer thee.
If thou wert dumb; if thou wert like the sky,
Which has not learned to speak our misery
In any voice less rude than the wind's cry;
If thou wert wholly young and didst not know
The secret of our ancient human woe,
Or if thou knewest it wholly as I know;
Or yet if thou wert old with all these years;
If thou wert dull to hopes and loves and fears;
If thou wert blind and couldst not see our tears;
If thou wert bounded by some rocky shore,
And hadst not given thyself thus wholly o'er
To our poor single selves with all thy store;
If thou wert not in thy immensity,
A single circle circling with the sky,
Where we must still be centres changelessly;
If thou wert other than thou art; alas,
If thou wert not of water, but a mass
Of formless earth, a waveless plain of grass;
If thou wert shapeless as the mountains are;
If thou wert clad in some discordant wear;
If thou wert not so blue and trim and fair;
If thou wert decked with towns and villages;
If there was heard, across the silent seas,
The music of church bells upon the breeze;
If thou wert this; or if thou wert not near,
But I could only sit apart and hear
The beating of thy waves, and find it drear,
But wild and quite unknown, and far from me;
Sea, if thou couldst no longer be the sea,
Then I could love thee as thou lovest me.
If thou wouldst have me love thee, beautiful sea,
Build up a wall of dark 'twixt thee and me;
Let me not see thee; call the night to thee.
League with the winds; rise up, and send them driven
To roll mad clouds about thy back at even.
Make thee a desolation of the heaven.
Thou shouldst compel me, with thy angry voice,
To choose 'twixt death and thee; and, at the choice,
If my cheek grew not pale, thou might'st rejoice,
And I might love thee, oh thou monstrous sea;
But now I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or bear thy beauty in my misery.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Memorial Pillar
Hast thou thro' Eden's wild-wood vales, pursued
Each mountain-scene, magnificently rude,
Nor with attention's lifted eye, revered
That modest stone, by pious Pembroke rear'd,
Which still records, beyond the pencil's power,
The silent sorrows of a parting hour? ~ ROGERS.
Mother and child! whose blending tears
Have sanctified the place,
Where, to the love of many years,
Was given one last embrace;
Oh! ye have shrin'd a spell of power,
Deep in your record of that hour!
A spell to waken solemn thought,
A still, small under-tone,
That calls back days of childhood, fraught
With many a treasure gone;
And smites, perchance, the hidden source,
Tho' long untroubled–of remorse.
For who, that gazes on the stone
Which marks your parting spot,
Who but a mother's love hath known,
The one love changing not?
Alas! and haply learn'd its worth
First with the sound of 'Earth to earth?'
But thou, high-hearted daughter! thou,
O'er whose bright honour'd head,
Blessings and tears of holiest flow,
Ev'n here were fondly shed,–
Thou from the passion of thy grief,
In its full burst, couldst draw relief.
For, oh! tho' painful be th' excess,
The might wherewith it swells,
In nature's fount no bitterness
Of nature's mingling, dwells;
And thou hadst not, by wrong or pride,
Poison'd the free and healthful tide.
But didst thou meet the face no more
Which thy young heart first knew?
And all–was all in this world o'er,
With ties thus close and true?
It was!–On earth no other eye
Could give thee back thine infancy.
No other voice could pierce the maze
Where, deep within thy breast,
The sounds and dreams of other days
With memory lay at rest;
No other smile to thee could bring
A gladd'ning, like the breath of spring.
Yet, while thy place of weeping still
Its lone memorial keeps,
While on thy name, midst wood and hill,
The quiet sunshine sleeps,
And touches, in each graven line,
Of reverential thought a sign;
Can I, while yet these tokens wear
The impress of the dead,
Think of the love embodied there,
As of a vision fled?
A perish'd thing, the joy and flower
And glory of one earthly hour?
Not so!–I will not bow me so,
To thoughts that breathe despair!
A loftier faith we need below,
Life's farewell words to bear.
Mother and child!–Your tears are past–
Surely your hearts have met at last.
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison ! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness ! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told ;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun ;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge ;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall ! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight !)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.
[Image][Image][Image]Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow ! Yes ! they wander on
In gladness all ; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles ! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity ! Ah ! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun !
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers ! richlier burn, ye clouds !
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves !
And kindle, thou blue Ocean ! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense ; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily ; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.
[Image][Image][Image][Image]A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there ! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage ; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine ! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight : and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower ! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure ;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty ! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles ! when the last rook
Beat its straight path across the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it ! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing ; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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O Lord My God! - -Carl Boberg
O Lord my God!
When I in awesome wonder
consider all the worlds
Thy hands have made
I see the stars,
I hear the rolling thunder,
The power throughout the universe displayed
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the geltle breeze;
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in; -
That on the cross my burden gladly bearing,
He bled to take away my sin; -
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
And there proclaim, My God, How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
poem by Sangnam Nam
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The Evening Wind
Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!
Nor I alone--a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!
Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,
Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning from the innumerable boughs
The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.
The faint old man shall lean his silver head
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep:
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.
Go--but the circle of eternal change,
Which is the life of nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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