Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE FOOT-PATH, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: It mounts athwart the windy hill Last Line: Unsought, they whisper it themselves. | ||||||||
IT mounts athwart the windy hill Through sallow slopes of upland bare, And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still Its narrowing curves that end in air. By day, a warmer-hearted blue Stoops softly to that topmost swell; Its thread-like windings seem a clew To gracious climes where all is well. By night, far yonder, I surmise An ampler world than clips my ken, Where the great stars of happier skies Commingle nobler fates of men. I look and long, then haste me home, Still master of my secret rare; Once tried, the path would end in Rome, But now it leads me everywhere. Forever to the new it guides, From former good, old overmuch; What Nature for her poets hides, 'T is wiser to divine than clutch. The bird I list hath never come Within the scope of mortal ear; My prying step would make him dumb, And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. Behind the hill, behind the sky, Behind my inmost thought, he sings; No feet avail; to hear it nigh, The song itself must lend the wings. Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise Those angel stairways in my brain, That climb from these low-vaulted days To spacious sunshines far from pain. Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat To make a twice-told tale of God. They said the fairies tript no more, And long ago that Pan was dead; 'T was but that fools preferred to bore Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead. Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, The fairies dance each full-mooned night, Would we but doff our lenses strong, And trust our wiser eyes' delight. City of Elf-land, just without Our seeing, marvel ever new, Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt Sketched-in mirage-like, on the blue. I build thee in yon sunset cloud, Whose edge allures to climb the height; I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, From still pools dusk with dreams of night. Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, Thy countersign of long-lost speech, -- Those fountained courts, those chambers still, Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach? I know not, and will never pry, But trust our human heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an open sense may fall. Hide in thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper it themselves. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AUF WIEDERSEHEN! SUMMER by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AUSPEX by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL BEAVER BROOK by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL COMMEMORATION ODE READ AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYAM by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IN THE TWILIGHT by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL LINES; SUGGESTED BY GRAVES TWO ENGLISH SOLDIERS ON CONCORD by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL MY LOVE by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ON BOARD THE '76; WRITTEN FOR BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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