I did not sleep 'twas noon of day I saw the burning sunshine fall The long grass bending where I lay The blue sky brooding over all I heard the mellow hum of bees And singing birds and sighing trees And far away in woody dell The Music of the Sabbath bell I did not dream remembrance still Clasped round my heart its fetters chill But I am sure the soul is free To leave its clay a little while Or how in exile misery Could I have seen my country smile In English fields my limbs were laid With English turf beneath my head My spirit wandered o'er that shor[e] Where nought but it may wander more Yet if the soul can thus return I need not and I will not mourn And vainly did you drive me far With leagues of ocean stretched between My mortal flesh you might debar But not the eternal fire within My Monarch died to rule forever A heart that can forget him never And dear to me aye doubly dear Thought shut within the silent tomb His name shall be for whom I bear This long sustained and hopeless doom And brighter in the hour of woe Than in the blaze of victory's pride That glory shedding star shall glow For which we fought and bled and died | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET - REALITIES: 1 by EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS TO THE STATES. TO IDENTIFY THE 16TH, 17TH, OR 18TH PRESIDENTIAD by WALT WHITMAN THE WOOD THRUSH by SUSAN SHARP ADAMS SAME COTTAGE - BUT ANOTHER SONG, OF ANOTHER SEASON by HENRY MAXIMILIAN BEERBOHM IMPROMPTU by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |