Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMNS OF A HERMIT: 1, by JOHN STERLING (1806-1844)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HYMNS OF A HERMIT: 1, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sweet morn! From countless cups of gold
Last Line: Our light returns.
Subject(s): Hermits


SWEET morn! from countless cups of gold
Thou liftest reverently on high
More incense fine than earth can hold,
To fill the sky.

One interfusion wide of love
Thine airs and odours moist ascend,
And, mid the azure depths above,
With light they blend.

The lark, by his own carol blest,
From thy green harbours eager springs;
And his large heart in little breast
Exulting sings.

On lands and seas, on fields and woods,
And cottage roofs, and ancient spires,
O morn! thy gaze creative broods,
While night retires.

Aloft the mountain ridges beam
Above their quiet steeps of gray;
The eastern clouds with glory stream,
And vital day.

By valleys dank, and river's brim,
Through corn-clad fields and wizard groves,
O'er dazzling tracks and hollows dim,
One spirit roves.

The broad-helm'd oak-tree's endless growth,
The mossy stone that crowns the hill,
The violet's breast, to gazers loath,
In sunshine thrill.

A joy from hidden paradise
Is rippling down the shiny brooks,
With beauty like the gleams of eyes
In tenderest looks.

Where'er the vision's boundaries glance,
Existence swells with teeming power,
And all illumined earth's expanse
Inhales the hour.

Not sands, and rocks, and seas immense,
And vapours thin, and halls of air;
Not these alone, with kindred glance,
The splendour share.

The fly his jocund round inweaves,
With choral strain the birds salute
The voiceful flocks, and nothing grieves,
And naught is mute.

In man, O morn! a loftier good,
With conscious blessing, fills the soul,
A life by reason understood,
Which metes the whole.

With healthful pulse, and tranquil fire,
Which plays at ease in every limb,
His thoughts uncheck'd to heaven aspire,
Reveal'd in him.

To thousands tasks of fruitful hope
With skill against his toil he bends,
And finds his work's determined scope
Where'er he wends.

From earth, and earthly toil and strife,
To deathless aims his love may rise,
Each dawn may wake to better life,
With purer eyes.

Such grace from thee, O God! be ours,
Renew'd with every morning's ray,
And freshening still, with added flowers,
Each future day.

To man is given one primal star;
One day-spring's beam has dawn'd below.
From thine our inmost glories are,
With thine we glow.

Like earth, awake, and warm, and bright
With joy the spirit moves and burns;
So up to thee, O Fount of Light
Our light returns.





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