JOY is upon the lonely seas, When Indian forests pour Forth, to the billow and the breeze Their odors from the shore; Joy, when the soft air's fanning sigh Bears on the breath of Araby. Oh! Welcome are the winds that tell A wanderer of the deep Where, far away, the jasmines dwell, And where the myrrh-trees weep! Blest on the sounding surge and foam Are tidings of the citron's home! The sailor at the helm they meet, And hope his bosom stirs, Upspringing, midst the waves, to greet The fair earth's messengers, That woo him, from the moaning main, Back to her glorious bowers again. They woo him, whispering lovely tales Of many a flowering glade, And fount's bright gleam, in island vales Of golden-fruited shade: Across his lone ship's wake they bring A vision and a glow of spring. And, O ye masters of the lay! Come not even thus your songs That meet us on life's weary way, Amidst her toiling throngs? Yes! o'er the spirit thus they bear A current of celestial air. Their power is from the brighter clime That in our birth hath part; Their tones are of the world, which time Sears not within the heart! They tell us of the living light In its green places ever bright. They call us, with a voice divine, Back to our early love, -- Our vows of youth at many a shrine, Whence far and fast we rove. Welcome high thought and holy strain That make us Truth's and Heaven's again! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE MESSAGES by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON THE PRINCESS: SONG by ALFRED TENNYSON LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH TO THE ROSE UPON THE ROOD OF TIME by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS GRIEF WAS SENT THEE FOR THY GOOD by THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY THE APPROACH OF COLD WEATHER by SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES |