Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ODE ON A FAIR SPRING MORNING, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907) Poet's Biography First Line: Come, friend, let us forget Last Line: But life's full noontide never is withdrawn. Subject(s): Spring | ||||||||
COME, friend, let us forget The turmoil of the world a little while, For now the soft skies smile, With dew the flowers are wet. Let us away awhile With fierce unrest and carking thoughts of care, And breathe a little while the jocund air, And sing the joyous measures sung By blither singers, when the world was young. For still the world is young, for still the spring Renews itself, and still the lengthening hours Bring back the month of flowers; The leaves are green to-day as those of old, For Chaucer and for Shakspeare; still the gold Of August gilds the rippling waves of wheat; Young maids are fair and sweet As when they frolicked gay, with flashing feet, Round the old May-pole. All young things rejoice. No sorrow dulls the blackbird's mellow voice, Thro' the clear summer dawns or twilights long. With aspect not more dim Thro' space the planets swim Than of old time o'er the Chaldean plain. We only, we alone, Let jarring discords mar our song. And find our music take a lower tone. We only with dim eyes And laboured vision feebly strain, And flout the undying splendours of the skies. Oh, see how glorious show, On this fair morn in May, the clear-cut hills, The dewy lawns, the hawthorn's white, Argent on fields of gold; the growing light Pure as when first on the young earth The faint warm sunlight came to birth; There is a nameless air Of sweet renewal over all which fills The earth and sky with life, and everywhere Before the new-born sun begins to glow, The birds awake which slumbered all night long, And with a gush of song, First doubting of their strain, then full and wide Raise their fresh hymns thro' all the country side; Already, above the dewy clover, The soaring lark begins to hover Over his mate's low nest; And soon, from childhood's early rest In hall and cottage, to the casement rise The little ones with their fresh opened eyes, And gaze on the old Earth, which still grows new, And see the tranquil heaven's unclouded blue, And, since as yet no sight nor sound of toil The fair spread, peaceful picture comes to soil, Look with their young and steadfast gaze Fixed in such artless sweet amaze As Adam knew, when first on either hand He saw the virgin landscapes of the morning land. Oh, youth, dawn, springtide, triune miracle, Renewing life in earth, and sky, and man, By what eternal plan Dost thou revive again and yet again? There is no morn that breaks, No bud that bursts, no life that comes to birth, But the rapt fancy takes, Far from the duller plains of mind and earth, Up to the source and origin of things, Where, poised on brooding wings, It seems to hover o'er the immense inane, And see the suns, like feeble rings of light, Orb from the gray, and all the youngling globe A coil of vapour circling like a dream, Then fixed compact for ever; the first beam Strike on the dark and undivided sea, And wake the deeps with life, Oh, mystery That still dost baffle thought, Though by all sages sought, And yet art daily done With each returning sun, With every dawn which reddens in the skies, With every opening of awakened eyes! How shall any dare to hold That the fair world growing old, Hath spent in vanished time The glories of its prime? Beautiful were the days indeed Of the Pagan's simple creed, When all of life was made for girl and boy, And all religion was but to enjoy. The fair chivalric dream To some may glorious seem, When from the sleeping centuries, Awakened Europe seemed to rise; It may be that we cannot know, In these ripe years, the glory and the glow Of those young hours of time, and careless days, Borne down too much by knowledge, and opprest, To halt a little for the needed rest, And yield ourselves awhile to joy and praise; Yet every year doth bring With each recurrence of the genial hour The infancy of spring, Crowned with unfolding leaf and bursting flower, And still to every home Fresh childish voices come, And eyes that opened last in Paradise, And with each rosy dawn Are night and death withdrawn; Another world rises for other eyes; Again begins the joy, the stress, the strife, Ancient as time itself, and wide as life. We are the ancients of the world indeed; No more the simple creed, When every hill and stream and grove Was filled with shy divinities of love, Allures us, serving as our King A Lord of grief and suffering, Too much our wisdom burdens to permit The fair, thin visions of the past, to flit From shade to shade, or float from hill to hill. We are so compassed round by ill, That all the music of our lives is dumb, Amid the turbulent waves of sound that rise, The discord born of doubts, and tears, and sighs, Which daily to the listening ear do come; Nay, oft, confounded by the incessant noise Of vast world-engines, grinding law on law, We lose the godhead that our fathers saw, And all our higher joys, And bear to plod on daily, deaf and blind, To a dark goal we dare not hope to find. But grows the world then old? Nay, all things that are born of time Spring upwards, and expand from youth to prime, Ripen from flower to fruit, From song-tide till the days are mute, Green blade to ear of gold. But not the less through the eternal round The sleep of winter wakes in days of spring, And not the less the bare and frozen ground Grows blithe with blooms that burst and birds that sing. Nature is deathless; herb and tree, Through time that has been and shall be, Change not, although the outward form Seem now the columned palm Nourished in zones of calm, And now the gnarled oak that defies the storm. The cedar's thousand summers are no more To her than are the fleeting petals gay Which the young spring, ere March is o'er, Scarce offered, takes away. Eternal are her works. Unchanging she, Alike in short-lived flower and ever-changing sea. We, too, are deathless; we, Eternal as the Earth, We cannot cease to be While springtide comes or birth. If our being cease to hold Reflected lights divine On budding lives, with every morn they shine With unabated gold. Though lost it may be to our mortal sight, It cannot be that any perish quite -- Only the baser part forgets to be. And if within the hidden Treasury Of the great Ruler we awhile should rest, To issue with a higher stamp imprest, With all our baser alloy purged and spent, Were we not thus content? Our thoughts too mighty are To be within our span of years confined, Too deep and wide and far, The hopes, the fears, that crowd the labouring mind, The sorrows that oppress, The sanctities that bless, Are vaster than this petty stage of things. The soaring fancy mounts on careless wings Beyond the glimmer of the furthest star. The nightly watcher who with patient eye Scans the illumined sky, Knows when the outward rushing fire shall turn, And in far ages hence shall brightly burn For eyes to-day undreamt of. The clear voice From Greece or Israel thro' the centuries heard Still bids us tremble or rejoice, Stronger than living look or word; The love of home or race, Which doth transfigure us, and seems to bring On every heaven-lit face Some shadow of the glory of our King, Fades not on earth, nor with our years doth end; Nay, even earth's poor physical powers transcend The narrow bounds of space and time, The swift thought by some mystic sympathy Speeding through desert sand, and storm-tost sea. And shall we hold the range of mind Is to our little lives confined; That the pure heart in some blest sphere above, Loves not which here was set on fire of love; The clear eye scans not still, which here could scan The confines of the Universal plan; The seer nor speaks nor thinks his thoughts sublime, And all of Homer is a speck of lime? Nay, friend, let us forget Our haunting doubts and fears a little while, Again our springs shall smile; We shall not perish yet. If God so guide our fate, The nobler portions of ourselves shall last Till all the lower rounds of life be past, And we, regenerate. We too again shall rise, The same and not the same, As daily rise upon the orient skies New dawns with wheels of flame. So, if it worthy prove, Our being, self-perfected, shall upward move To higher essence, and still higher grown, Not sweeping idle harps before a throne, Nor spending praise where is no need of praise, But through unnumbered lives and ages come From pure laborious days, To an eternal home, Where spring is not, nor birth, nor any dawn, But life's full noontide never is withdrawn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPRING LEMONADE by TONY HOAGLAND A SPRING SONG by LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN SPRING'S RETURN by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS ODE TO SPRING by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD ODE TO SPRING by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SPRING FLOODS by MAURICE BARING SPRING IN WINTER by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES SPRING ON THE PRAIRIE by HERBERT BATES THE FARMER'S BOY: SPRING by ROBERT BLOOMFIELD A CAROL by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907) |
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