Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BUBBLE, by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BUBBLE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Out springs the bubble, dazzling bright
Last Line: The bubble bursts, -- and this is life!
Subject(s): Beauty; Children; Graves; Life; Nations; Childhood; Tombs; Tombstones


OUT springs the bubble, dazzling bright,
With ever-changing hues of light,
And so amid the flowery grass
Our gilded years of childhood pass.
Yet bears not each with traitor sway,
Beneath its robe, some gem away?
Some bud of hope, at morning born,
Without the memory of the thorn?
Some fruit that ripen'd, free from care?
Where are those vanish'd treasures? where?

Then knowledge, with her letter'd lore,
Demands us at the nursery-door,
Reproves our love of vain delights,
And on the brow, "sub jugum," writes.
But the sweet joys of earliest days,
The buoyant spirits, wing'd for praise,
Escape, -- exhale. We thought them seal'd
For wintry days, their charm to yield.
Where have they fled? Go, ask the sky,
Where fleet the dews, when suns are high.

Upborne by history's arm, we tread
The crumbling soil, o'er nations dead.
The buried king, the mouldering sage,
The relics of a nameless age,
We summon forth, with vain regret;
And in that toil our heart forget: --
Till, warn'd, perchance, by wayward deads,
How much that realm a regent needs,
Renew, with pangs of contrite pain,
The study of ourselves again.

While thus we roam, the silver hair
Steals o'er our temples here and there,
And beauty starts, amaz'd to see
The ploughshare of an enemy.
-- What is that haunt, where willows wave?
That yawning pit? The grave! the grave!
The turf is set, the violets grow,
The throngs rush on, where we lie low.
Our name is lost, amid their strife,
The bubble bursts, -- and this is life!





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