Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CHANGE, by ALEXANDER SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHANGE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh! Never, never can I call
Last Line: Enough to hide the eyes of death.


"OH! never, never can I call
Another morning to my day,
And now through shade to shade I fall
From afternoon to evening gray."
In bitterness these words I said,
And, lo! when I expected least, --
For day was gone, -- a moonrise spread
Its emerald radiance up the east.

By passion's gaudy candle-lights,
I sat and watched the world's brave play;
Blown out, -- how poor the trains and sights
Looked in the cruel light of day!
I cursed Man for his spaniel heart,
His bounded brain, his lust of pelf --
Alas! each crime of field and mart
Lived in a dark disease of self.

I saw the smiles and mean salaams
Of slavish hearts; I heard the cry
Of maddened people's throwing palms
Before each cheered and timbreled lie;
I loathed the brazen front and brag
Of bloated time; in self-defence
Withdrew I to my lonely crag,
And fortress of indifference.

But Nature is revenged on those
Who turn from her to lonely days:
Contentment, like the speedwell, blows
Along the common beaten ways.
The dead and thick green-mantled moats
That gird my house resembled me,
Or some long-weeded hull that rots
Upon a glazing tropic sea.

And madness ever round us lies,
The final bourne and end of thought;
And Pleasure shuts her glorious eyes
At one cold glance and melts to naught;
And Nature cannot hear us moan;
She smiles in sunshine, raves in rain --
The music breathed by Love alone
Can ease the world's immortal pain.

The sun forever hastes sublime,
Waved onward by Orion's lance;
Obedient to the spheral chime,
Across the world the seasons dance;
The flaming elements ne'er bewail
Their iron bounds, their less or more;
The sea can drown a thousand sail,
Yet rounds the pebbles on the shore.

I looked with pride on what I'd done,
I counted merits o'er anew,
In presence of the burning sun,
Which drinks me like a drop of dew.
A lofty scorn I dared to shed
On human passions, hopes, and jars,
I, standing on the countless dead,
And pitied by the countless stars.

But mine is now a humbled heart,
My lonely pride is weak as tears;
No more I seek to stand apart,
A mocker of the rolling years.
Imprisoned in this wintry clime,
I've found enough, O Lord, of breath,
Enough to plume the feet of time,
Enough to hide the eyes of death.





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