Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BARREN HILL, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BARREN HILL, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Before my home, a long straight hill
Last Line: Than ever it could give.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Home; Mountains; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


BEFORE my Home, a long straight Hill
Extends its barren bound,
And all who that way travel will
Must travel miles around;
Yet not the loveliest face of earth
To living man can be
A treasury of more precious worth
Than that bare Hill to me.

That Hill-side rose a wall between
This world of ears and eyes
And every shining shifty scene
That fancy forms and dyes:
First Babyhood engaged its use,
To plant a good-child's land,
Where all the streams were orange-juice,
And sugar all the sand.

A playground of unending sward
There blest the growing Boy,
A dream of labourless reward,
Whole holidays of joy;
A book of Nature, whose bright leaves
No other care should need
Than life that happily receives
What he that runs may read.

Nor lacked there skies for onward youth
With wayward will to tinge,
Sweet sunshine overcast by ruth,
And storms of golden fringe:
Nor vales that darkling might evoke
Mysterious fellowship
Of names that still to Fancy woke,
But slumbered on the lip.

The hour when first that hill I crost,
Can yet my memory sting,
The dear self-trust that moment lost
No lore again can bring:
It seemed a foully broken bond
Of Nature and my kind,
That I should find the world beyond
The world I left behind.

But not in vain that hill-side stood,
On many an after-day,
When with returning steps I wooed
Revival of its sway;
It could not give me Truth where doubt
And sin had ample range,
But it was powerful to shut out
The ill it could not change.

And still performs a sacred part,
To my experienced eye,
This Pisgah which my virgin heart
Ascended but to die;
What was Reality before
In symbol now may live,
Endowed with right to promise more
Than ever it could give.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net