Fluid the world flowed under us: the hills Billow on billow of umbrageous green Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills And silver-rising storms and dewy stills Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills. Then all of Nature's old amazement seemed Sudden to ask us: "Is this also Man? This plunging, volant, land-amphibian What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed? Reply!" And piercing us with ancient scan, The shrill, primeval hawk gazed down -- and screamed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SABBATH OF THE SOUL by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE PRETTY GIRL OF LOCH DAN by SAMUEL FERGUSON SONNET: TO FANNY by JOHN KEATS THE SPIRIT OF POETRY by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SONNET: FOR INSPIRATION by MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI JEANIE MORRISON by WILLIAM MOTHERWELL |