Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND, ON HIS LINES PRAISING THE TRANQUILITY OF A, by REGINALD HEBER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND, ON HIS LINES PRAISING THE TRANQUILITY OF A, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh townshend! Couldst thou linger where scarce a ripple play'd
Last Line: For health and hope are in thy song, thou deep full-voiced sea!
Subject(s): Admiration; Nature


OH Townshend! couldst thou linger where scarce a ripple play'd
Across the lily's glossy stem, or beneath the willow's shade,
And did that mighty chorus allure thy bark in vain,
The laughter of the dancing waves and music of the main?

The breeze may tell his story of soft and still delight,
As whispering through the woodbine bower he fans the cheek of night,
But louder, blither, sings the wind, his carol wild and free,
When the harvest moon sails forth in pride above her subject sea.
I love to thread the little paths the rushy banks between,
Where Terne, in dewy silence, creeps through the meadow green:
I love to mark the speckled trout beneath the sunbeam lie,
And skimming past, on filmy wing, the danger-courting fly.

I praise the darker shadows where, o'er the runnel lone,
The regal oak or swarthy pine their giant arms have thrown,
Or, from his couch of heather, where Skiddaw bends to view
The furrows of his rifted brow in Derwent's mirror blue.

But not that narrow stillness has equal charms for me,
With thy ten thousand voices, thou broad exulting sea!
Thy shining sands, thy rugged shores, thy breakers rolling bright,
And all thy dim horizon speck'd with sails of moving light.

Oft on thy wonders may I gaze, oft on thy waters ride,
Oft with no timid arm essay thy dark transparent tide;
Oft may thy sound be in my dreams, far inland though I be,
For health and hope are in thy song, thou deep full-voiced sea!





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