THE lake is calm; and, calm, the skies In yonder silent sunset glow, Where, o'er the woodland, homeward flies The solitary crow; The woodman to his hut is gone; The wood-dove in the elm is still; The last sheep drinks, and wanders on To graze at will. Nor aught the pensive prospect breaks, Save where my slow feet stir the grass, Or where the trout to diamonds breaks The lake's pale glass. No moan the cushat makes, to heave A leaflet round her windless nest; The air is silent in the eve; The world's at rest. All bright below; all calm above; No sense of pain, no sign of wrong; Save in thy heart of hopeless love, Poor child of Song! Why must the soul through Nature rove, At variance with her general plan? A stranger to the Power, whose love Soothes all save Man? Why lack the strength of meaner creatures? The wandering sheep, the grazing kine, Are surer of their simple natures Than I of mine. For all their wants the poorest land Affords supply; they browse and breed; I scarce divine, and ne'er have found, What most I need. O God, that in this human heart Hath made Belief so hard to grow, And set the doubt, the pang, the smart In all we know -- Why hast thou, too, in solemn jest At this tormented thinking-power, Inscribed, in flame on yonder West, In hues on every flower, Through all the vast unthinking sphere Of mere material Force without, Rebuke so vehement and severe To the least doubt? And robed the world and hung the night, With silent, stern, and solemn forms; And strown with sounds of awe and might, The seas and storms, -- All lacking power to impart To man the secret he assails, But armed to crush him, if his heart Once doubts or fails! To make him feel the same forlorn Despair the Fiend hath felt ere now, In gazing at the stern sweet scorn On Michael's brow. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TUOL SLENG: POL POT'S PRISON by KAREN SWENSON THE CRYSTAL GAZER by SARA TEASDALE NEEDLE THREADER IN NEED OF A NEEDLE by DARA WIER UP IN THE MORNING EARLY by ROBERT BURNS THE HILL WIFE: THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM by ROBERT FROST THE RUBAIYAT, 1879 EDITION: 7 by OMAR KHAYYAM THE FAMINE YEAR by JANE FRANCESCA WILDE |