Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, O'CONNOR'S CHILD, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

O'CONNOR'S CHILD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sleep of storms is dark upon the skies
Last Line: The tempest, and the desert, and the tomb.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Ireland; Irish


THE sleep of storms is dark upon the skies;
The weight of omens heavy in the cloud: --
Bid the lorn huntress of the desert rise,
And gird the form whose beauty grief hath bowed,
And leave the tomb, as tombs are left -- alone,
To the stars' vigil, and the wind's wild moan.

Tell her of revelries in bower and hall,
Where gems are glittering, and bright wine is poured --
Where to glad measures chiming footsteps fall,
And soul seems gushing from the harp's full chord;
And richer flowers amid fair tresses wave,
Than the sad "Love-lies-bleeding" of the grave.

Oh! little know'st thou of the o'ermastering spell,
Wherewith love binds the spirit, strong in pain.
To the spot hallowed by a wild farewell.
A parting agony -- intense, yet vain,
A look -- and darkness when its gleam hath flown,
A voice -- and silence when its words are gone.

She hears thee not; -- her full, deep, fervent heart
Is set in her dark eyes; -- and they are bound
Unto that cross, that shrine, that world apart,
Where faithful blood hath sanctified the ground.
And love with death striven long by tear and prayer,
And anguish frozen into still despair.

Yet on her spirit hath arisen at last
A light, a joy of its own wanderings born;
Around her path a vision's glow is cast,
Back, back, her lost one comes in hues of morn!
For her the gulf is filled -- the curtain shred,
Whose mystery parts the living and the dead.

And she can pour forth in such converse high,
All her soul's tide of love, the deep, the strong!
Oh! lonelier far, perchance, thy destiny,
And more forlorn, amidst the world's gay throng,
Than hers, -- the queen of that majestic gloom,
The tempest, and the desert, and the tomb.





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