Bold Science faces north. With steady eye He fronts the stern, mysterious unknown, Assails its boundaries with How and Why, And claims its farthest reaches for his own. Art faces west. Where many a sun has set, Where skies are soft with memory and sleep, She pays her tender tribute of regret, And learns to smile just that she may not weep. The Poet faces east, and waits the day. His eyes are bright with prophecies of dawn, And as he sings, behold! a herald ray Leaps to the mountain, glimmers on the lawn. Love faces south, the warm, impassioned south, The languorous south whose torpor holds a flame. Its zephyrs breathe a kiss upon her mouth, And all its valleys echo to her name. Earth faces downward, inward to himself. Concentred flow his currents of desire, Swift with ambition, clogged with greedy pelf; His front is rock, his hidden heart is fire. Religion faces upward to the stars. There knowledge, there the older past she sees, There truest self, love that no passion mars, And there the dawn of all eternities! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DAYBREAK by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 101 by ALFRED TENNYSON FARM-YARD SONG by JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE BETTY TO HERSELF by EDWARD W. BANNARD THE WOLF AND SHEPHERDS; A FABLE by JAMES BEATTIE THE MEANING by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |