Winter is nearing my dark threshold fast , Already in low knells and broken wailings, Ever austerer, menaces the blast Which, soon a tempest, with its fierce assailings Will swoop down on its unresistant prey. The Iris-coloured firmament, whereto Imagination turned, weeps day by day, For some lost fragment of its gold and blue, And the dun clouds are mustering thick that soon Will overdark the little of the beams Of that unfaithful and most wasted Moon Of hope, that yet with pallid face (as gleams A dying lamp amid grey ruins), wins The cozened spirit o'er its flowerless path. So be it! When the wanderer's night begins, And the hoarse winds are heard afar in wrath, He gazes on the curtained West with tears, And lists disturbedly each sound, nor sees Aught but dismay in the vague Night, nor hears Aught but funereal voices on the breeze, But when-his hour of gloom and slumber done- He looks forth on the re-awakened globe, Freshly apparelled in her virgin robe Of morning light and crownèd with the sun, His heart bounds like the light roe from its lair. And shall it not be thus with me-the trance Of death once conquered and o'erpast?-Perchance I know not, but I cannot all despair. I have grieved enough to bid Man's world farewell Without one pang-and let not this be turned To my disparagement what time my unurned Ashes lie trodden in the churchyard dell. For is not Grief the deepest, purest love? Were not the tears that I have wept alone Beside the midnight river, in the grove, Under the yew, or o'er the burial-stone, The outpourings of a heart that overflowed With an affection worlds beyond control, The pleasurable anguish of a soul That, while it suffered, fondly loved and glowed? It may be that my love was foolishness, And yet it was not wholly objectless In mine own fancy, which in soulless things, Fountains and wildwood blossoms, rills and bowers, Read words of mystic lore, and found in flowers, And birds, and clouds, and winds, and gushing springs, Histories from ancient spheres like the dim wanderers Whose path is in the great Inane of Blue, And which, though voiceless, utter to the few Of Earth, whom Heaven and Poesy make ponderers Apocalyptic oracles and true. My Fatherland! My Mother-Earth! I owe Ye much, and would not seem ungrateful now; And if the laurel decorate my brow, Be that a set-off against so much woe As Man's applause hath power to mitigate; If I have won, but may not wear it yet, The wreath is but unculled, and soon or late Will constitute my vernal coronet, Fadeless-at least till some unlooked-for blight fall- For, thanks to Knowledge, fair Desert, though sometimes Repulsed and baffled, wins its meed at last, And the reveil-call which on Fame's deep drum Time's. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TRUE UNTIL DEATH by ROBERT BURNS ON AN INFANT WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS: 1. HIS EXCUSE FOR LOVING by BEN JONSON THE WELL OF ST. KEYNE by ROBERT SOUTHEY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH SONNET: A PREACHER by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ONCE WITH DEATH NEAR by REBA MAXWELL AVERY |