Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER, by THOMAS GOLD APPLETON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER, by                    
First Line: The bittern hies, / in lazy flight
Last Line: Their sheeny jewelry evermore.
Subject(s): Beverly, Massachusetts


THE bittern hies,
In lazy flight,
Where star-shine lies
O'er moorlands white,
And shakes new fear from ghostly night.

The reeds hang stiff
By many a stream,
The sailing skiff
Sails like a dream,
And prayers go up beneath the gleam.

Rude falls the wave
On shingle cold,
And foam-beads lave
The forests old,
And break and die on their dark mould.

In pools like stone,
So still and bright,
The stork alone,
As an anchorite,
Tells to himself his dreary rite.

No cloud is strewn
O'er the frozen sky;
To a spirit tune
Their lullaby
The oaks around chant dismally.

Not a living man
Moves on the moor;
No soul that can
Opes now the door,
But silent fear haunts the wild shore.

Bad spirits sail
On the cloudy rack,
The dark turns pale
In their blasting track,
Where they touch the frost is sooty black.

The marsh grass thin
Shivers in fear,
Thistle-downs spin
From the thistle sere,
And shadows race o'er the levels drear.

Like silver shines
Each sea-shell worn.
The ridged sand-lines
By surges torn
Seem faery ramparts left and lorn.

A star down drops
From the sea on high,
Past the forest tops
To the lower sky,
Like a tear from a suffering angel's eye.

Icicles hoar
Split and descend;
On the freezing shore
The frost kings rend
Their sheeny jewelry evermore.





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