Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE TO A PAIR OF SANDPIPERS, by MARCUS S. C. RICKARDS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE TO A PAIR OF SANDPIPERS, by                    
First Line: No studious haunt this mossy nook!
Last Line: For brighter pleasure!
Subject(s): Autumn; Hearts; Nature; Sandpipers; Seasons; Fall


NO studious haunt this mossy nook!
Thought strays so from my open book
The while a calm meandering brook
Tells its sweet story,
In soft reminder that a page
Of Nature's Volume would engage
My heart with its bright equipage
Of summer glory.

Save for that murmur, azure sky,
And flowery bank, and radiant fly,
And gleaming halcyon flashing by
Were lost to vision --
And what has charmed me even more,
Unconscious Beauty sporting o'er
Yon margin, migrant from some shore
Of stream Elysian.

Long have I watched you, fairy things,
Dance down the bank with airy springs,
Then sudden arch your wary wings
In shrilly rapture --
On stiffened pinions lightly glide,
And pitch upon the other side,
A bridegroom bent on a fair bride
He scarce can capture!

Bring ye no lore from a far strand
That human heart can understand?
Perchance these sylphs that never stand
In vain reposing,
These forms all tremulous, would tell
How fragile is the fairest spell --
For Beauty smiles, no sentinel
In constant posing.

She mocks at rule, coquettes with Chance!
And vibrates even as we glance;
We look away, and lo! her dance
Of glee is over.
And haply too that wooer's chase
Of his delight from place to place
Warns all who covet Love's embrace,
Of Joy the rover.

Full often Earth's supremest bliss,
The hot pursuer's crowning kiss
When just within our grasp, we miss
In empty straining.
And more -- methinks this counsel ripe
Hangs on your course, gay summer snipe!
Your restless movement, slender pipe,
And brief remaining,

Appear to bid us, guests of Time,
All buoyant from a foreign clime,
Trip innocently o'er the slime
Around Life's river --
Now sunny side, and shady now,
Our joys whatever Love allow,
Our course one consecrated vow
To the All-giver.

Mine be it lovely birds, like you,
To rate yon gold and green and blue
At its fair measure --
Mine, oft mid Summer's dreamy thrall,
The shadowing Journey to recall,
Then vanish swift at Autumn fall
For brighter Pleasure!





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