-- True, our converse a stranger is to speech, Only the practised ear can catch the surging words, That break and die upon thy pebbled lips. Thy flow of thought is noiseless as the lapse of thy own waters, Wafted as is the morning mist up from thy surface, So that the passive Soul doth breathe it in, And is infected with the truth thou wouldst express. E'en the remotest stars have come in troops And stooped low to catch the benediction Of thy countenance. Oft as the day came round, Impartial has the sun exhibited himself Before thy narrow skylight -- nor has the moon For cycles failed to roll this way As oft as elsewhither, and tell thee of the night. No cloud so rare but hitherward it stalked, And in thy face looked doubly beautiful. O! tell me what the winds have writ within these thousand years, On the blue vault that spans thy flood -- Or sun transferred and delicately reprinted For thy own private reading. Somewhat Within these latter days I've read, But surely there was much that would have thrilled the Soul, Which human eye saw not I would give much to read that first bright page, Wet from a virgin press, when Eurus -- Boreas -- And the host of airy quill-drivers First dipped their pens in mist. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ODE TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY by SIDNEY LANIER THE JOY OF THE HILLS by EDWIN MARKHAM SONG OF THE STYGIAN NAIADES by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE ROSE-BUD; TO A YOUNG LADY by WILLIAM BROOME MY MARYLAND by JAMES RYDER RANDALL |