Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, POETRY AND THE POOR, by W. WALSHAM STOWE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

POETRY AND THE POOR, by                    
First Line: The world is very beautiful!' I said
Last Line: To make the desert blossom as the rose.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Poverty


"THE world is very beautiful!" I said,
As, yesterday, beside the brimming stream,
Glad and alone, I watched the tremulous gleam
Slant through the wintry wood, green carpeted
With moss and fern and curving bramble spray,
And bronze the thousand russet margin-reeds,
And in the sparkling holly glint and play,
And kindle all the brier's flaming seeds.

"The world is very horrible!" I sigh,
As, in my wonted ways, to-day I tread
Chill streets, deformed with dim monotony,
Hiding strange mysteries of unknown dread, --
The reeking court, the breathless fever-den,
The haunts where things unholy throng and brood:
Grim crime, the fierce despair of strong-armed men,
Child infamy, and shameless womanhood.

And men have looked upon this piteous thing, --
Blank lives unvisited by beauty's spell, --
And said, "let be: it is not meet to bring
Dreams of sweet freedom to the prison cell;
Sing them no songs of things all bright and fair,
Paint them no visions of the glad and free,
Lest with purged sights their miseries they see,
And through vain longings pass to blank despair."

O brother, treading ever-darkening ways,
O sister, whelmed in ever-deepening care,
Would God we might unfold before your gaze
Some vision of the pure and true and fair!
Better to know, though sadder things be known,
Better to see, though tears half blind the sight,
Than thraldom to the sense, and heart of stone,
And horrible contentment with the night.

Oh, bring we then all sweet and gracious things
To touch the lives that lie so chill and drear,
That they may dream of some diviner sphere,
Whence each soft ray of love and beauty springs!
Each good and perfect gift is from above,
And there is healing for earth's direst woes;
God hath unsealed the springs of light and love,
To make the desert blossom as the rose.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


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