How beautiful this hill of fern swells on! So beautiful the chapel peeps between The hornbeams -- with its simple bell. Alone I wander here, hid in a palace green. Mary is absent -- but the forest queen, Nature, is with me. Morning, noon and gloaming, I write my poems in these paths unseen; And when among these brakes and beeches roaming, I sigh for truth, and home, and love and woman. I sigh for one and two -- and still I sigh, For many are the whispers I have heard From beauty's lips. Love's soul in many an eye Hath pierced my heart with such intense regard, I looked for joy and pain was the reward. I think of them I love, each girl and boy, Babes of two mothers, -- on this velvet sward, And Nature thinks -- in her so sweet employ, While dews fall on each blossom, weeping joy. Here is the chapel yard enclosed with pales, And oak trees nearly top its little bell. Here is the little bridge with guiding rail That leads me on to many a pleasant dell. The fern owl chitters like a startled knell To nature -- yet 'tis sweet at evening still. A pleasant road curves round the gentle swell, Where Nature seems to have her own sweet will, Planting her beech and thorn about the sweet fern hill | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MEMORY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON HYMN: 2 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD POEM FOR PICTURE: TO AN OIL PAINTING BY WINSLOW HOMER (DRIFTWOOD) by FRANK ANKENBRAND JR. STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD by BERNARD BARTON SONGS OF MIRZA SCHAFFY, SELECTION by FRIEDRICH MARTIN VON BODENSTEDT WASTED FOUNTAINS by ANNE CHARLOTTE LYNCH BOTTA ON MR. CHURCHILL'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY (NOVEMBER 30, 1944) by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB |