From what proud star I know not, but I found Myself newborn below the coppice rail, No bigger than the dewdrops and as round, In a soft sward, no cattle might assail. And here I gathered mightiness and grew With this one dream kindling in me: that I Should never cease from conquering light and dew Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky. A century of blue and stilly light Bowed down before me, the dew came agen, The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night, The sun returned and long revered: but then Hoarse drooping darkness hung me with a shroud And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn: Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud, And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, And trampling envy spied me where I stood: Who haled me tired and quaking, hid me by, And came agen after an age of cold, And hung me in the prison-house a-dry From the great crossbeam. Here defiled and old I perish through unnumbered hours, I swoon, Hacked with harsh knives to staunch a child's torn hand; And all my hopes must with my body soon Be but as crouching dust and wind-blown sand. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BATTLE OF THE BALTIC by THOMAS CAMPBELL PHILIP, MY KING by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE by EMILY DICKINSON SONNET: 55 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BY THE SALPETRIERE by THOMAS ASHE SPANISH WINGS: A LEAF FROM A LOG BOOK by H. BABCOCK MY GARDEN by CLARA MCKEE BEEDE |