Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Darkly thou glidest onward
Last Line: In one bright flood of day!
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Brooks; Streams; Creeks


DARKLY thou glidest onward,
Thou deep and hidden wave!
The laughing sunshine hath not looked
Into thy secret cave.

Thy current makes no music --
A hollow sound we hear,
A muffled voice of mystery,
And know that thou art near.

No brighter line of verdure
Follows thy lonely way;
No fairy moss, or lily's cup,
Is freshened by thy play.

The halcyon doth not seek thee,
Her glorious wings to lave;
Thou know'st no tint of the summer sky,
Thou dark and hidden wave!

Yet once will day behold thee,
When to the mighty sea,
Fresh bursting from their caverned veins,
Leap thy lone waters free.

There wilt thou greet the sunshine
For a moment, and be lost,
With all thy melancholy sounds,
In the ocean's billowy host.

Oh! art thou not, dark river!
Like the fearful thoughts untold
Which haply, in the hush of night,
O'er many a soul have rolled?

Those earth-born strange misgivings --
Who hath not felt their power?
Yet who hath breathed them to his friend,
E'en in his fondest hour?

They hold no heart-communion,
They find no voice in song,
They dimly follow far from earth
The grave's departed throng.

Wild is their course and lonely,
And fruitless in man's breast;
They come and go, and leave no trace
Of their mysterious guest.

Yet surely must their wanderings
At length be like thy way;
Their shadows, as thy waters, lost
In one bright flood of day!





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