Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOPE, by THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOPE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Again - again she comes! Methinks I hear
Last Line: And heaven's flowers -- the stars -- are at her feet.
Subject(s): Hope; Optimism


AGAIN -- again she comes! -- methinks I hear
Her wild, sweet singing, and her rushing wings;
My heart goes forth to meet her with a tear,
And welcome sends from all its broken strings.
It was not thus -- not thus -- we met of yore,
When my plumed soul went half-way to the sky
To greet her; and the joyous song she bore
Was scarce more tuneful than the glad reply:
The wings are fetter'd by the weight of years,
And grief has spoil'd the music with her tears.

She comes -- I know her by her starry eyes,
I know her by the rainbow in her hair!
Her vesture of the light and summer skies --
But gone the girdle which she used to wear
Of summer roses, and the sandal flowers
That hung enamour'd round her fairy feet,
When, in her youth, she haunted earthly bowers,
And cull'd from all the beautiful and sweet.
No more she mocks me with her voice of mirth,
Nor offers now the garlands of the earth.

Come back, come back -- thou hast been absent long,
Oh! welcome back the sybil of the soul,
Who came, and comes again, with pleading strong,
To offer to the heart her mystic scroll;
Though every year she wears a sadder look,
And sings a sadder song, and every year
Some further leaves are torn out from her book,
And fewer what she brings, and far more dear.
As once she came -- oh, might she come again,
With all the perish'd volumes offer'd then.

But come -- thy coming is a gladness yet --
Light from the present o'er the future cast,
That makes the present bright -- but oh -- regret
Is present sorrow while it mourns the past;
And memory speaks, as speaks the curfew bell,
To tell the daylight of the heart is gone.
Come, like the seer of old, and with thy spell,
Put back the shadow of that setting sun
On my soul's dial; and with new-born light
Hush the wild tolling of the voice of night.

Bright spirit, come -- the mystic roll is thine,
That shows the hidden fountains of the breast,
And turns, with point unerring, to divine
The places where its buried treasures rest
Its hoards of thought and feeling; at that spell,
Methinks I feel its long-lost wealth reveal'd,
And ancient springs within my bosom swell
That grief had check'd, and ruin had conceal'd,
And sweetly swelling where its waters stray,
The tints and freshness of its earlier day.

She comes -- she comes -- her voice is in mine ear,
Her mild, sweet voice, that sings, and sings for ever,
Whose strains of song sweet thoughts awake to hear,
Like flowers that haunt the margin of a river;
(Flowers, like lovers, only speak in sighs,
Whose thoughts are hues, whose voices are their hearts,
Oh -- thus the spirit yearns to pierce the skies,
Exulting throbs, though all save hope departs:
Thus the glad freshness of our sinless years
Is water'd ever by the heart's rich tears.

She comes -- I know her by her radiant eyes,
Before whose smile the long dim cloud departs;
And if a darker shade be on her brow,
And if her tones be sadder than of yore,
And if she sings more solemn music now,
And bears another harp than erst she bore,
And if around her form no longer glow
The earthly flowers that in her youth she wore --
That look is loftier, and that song more sweet,
And heaven's flowers -- the stars -- are at her feet.





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