Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO - . LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Fair nature's priestesses! To whom Last Line: The hymns of gods to hear! Subject(s): Nature | ||||||||
FAIR Nature's priestesses! to whom, In hieroglyph of bud and bloom, Her mysteries are told; Who, wise in lore of wood and mead, The seasons' pictured scrolls can read, In lessons manifold! Thanks for the courtesy, and gay Good-humor, which on Washing Day Our ill-timed visit bore; Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke The morning dreams of Artichoke, Along his wooded shore! Varied as varying Nature's ways, Sprites of the river, woodland fays, Or mountain nymphs, ye seem; Free-limbed Dianas on the green, Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine, Upon your favorite stream. The forms of which the poets told, The fair benignities of old, Were doubtless such as you; What more than Artichoke the rill Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill Arcadia's mountain-view? No sweeter bowers the bee delayed, In wild Hymettus' scented shade, Than those you dwell among; Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined With roses, over banks inclined With trembling harebells hung! A charmed life unknown to death, Immortal freshness Nature hath; Her fabled fount and glen Are now and here: Dodona's shrine Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine, -- All is that e'er hath been. The Beauty which old Greece or Rome Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home; We need but eye and ear In all our daily walks to trace The outlines of incarnate grace, The hymns of gods to hear! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTERRUPTED MEDITATION by ROBERT HASS TWO VIEWS OF BUSON by ROBERT HASS THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN WRITING IS AN AID TO MEMORY: 17 by LYN HEJINIAN LET US GATHER IN A FLOURISHING WAY by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA IN MICHAEL ROBINS?ÇÖS CLASS MINUS ONE by HICOK. BOB BREADTH. CIRCLE. DESERT. MONARCH. MONTH. WISDOM by JOHN HOLLANDER VARIATIONS: 16 by CONRAD AIKEN UNHOLY SONNET 13 by MARK JARMAN AMY WENTWORTH; FOR WILLIAM BRADFORD by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |
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