Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AMONG THE MOUNTAINS, by EDMUND JOHN ARMSTRONG


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I wander on the barren moors
Last Line: And breathes the humid air of death!
Subject(s): Mountains; Loss; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


I WANDER on the barren moors
Alone, and thy dear memory lures
My thoughts to anguish, Madeline.
O, would that Time could backward roll,
And flash upon my weary soul
Days that seem never to have been!

Alas, alas, I cannot trace
The perfect outline of thy face!
It fades, it cheats me -- as I stray
All aimless on this dismal waste,
And strive with colours of the Past
To gild yon dreary verge of day.

Dark plain, that, like a stagnant sea,
Dost mock my spirit's vacancy;
Still darker hills, that loom behind;
You vex my vision with the sense
Of something lost, an influence
Like wailings of the midnight wind.

I close my sight . . in vain! The hues
Of liquid light are there, as dews
Upon an opening rose; the lines
Are dimmed; they vanish; all is blank . .
Through the tall reeds and rushes dank
The sad cold wind of evening whines!

What dungeon worse than this may be?
A barren plain without a tree,
And these bleak mountains, underneath
Their canopy of heavy cloud!
The earth is folded in a shroud,
And breathes the humid air of Death!





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