The Poetical Works of George Barlow In Ten [Eleven] Volumes |
 | I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
 | VII. |
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WOMAN AND NATURE
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| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
 | The Poetical Works of George Barlow |  |
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WOMAN AND NATURE
A glory of light beyond his utmost dream
Had flashed with sunlike flame and moonlike gleam
On Wordsworth's eyes
Had he discerned the sovereign force that fills
With lovelier light than theirs the laughing hills
And answering skies.
Had flashed with sunlike flame and moonlike gleam
On Wordsworth's eyes
Had he discerned the sovereign force that fills
With lovelier light than theirs the laughing hills
And answering skies.
The secrets of the grass and of the dew,
And of the lakes, the lonely poet knew:
These spake aloud.
He heard the voices of the stars at night
As they climbed upward from slow height to height,
From cloud to cloud.
And of the lakes, the lonely poet knew:
These spake aloud.
He heard the voices of the stars at night
As they climbed upward from slow height to height,
From cloud to cloud.
And yet he missed the magic of each place,
Because he missed the magic of the face
Of her whose power
Sways Nature,—fills the golden fields with bloom
And bids a million rosebuds burst their tomb
In one bright hour.
Because he missed the magic of the face
Of her whose power
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And bids a million rosebuds burst their tomb
In one bright hour.
Who yields his spirit to the sterile hills
Wins his reward. His lonely strong heart thrills
At storm and sun;
At bastioned thunder-cloud, and mountain rain,
And light renewed when the green slopes again
Gleam one by one.
Wins his reward. His lonely strong heart thrills
At storm and sun;
At bastioned thunder-cloud, and mountain rain,
And light renewed when the green slopes again
Gleam one by one.
He hath his high reward,—and yet the higher
Reward and sweeter is to feel the fire
Of love suffuse
The crags and glens and mountain-threatened vales;
To know the sovereign of the streams and dales,
Their queen-recluse.
Reward and sweeter is to feel the fire
Of love suffuse
The crags and glens and mountain-threatened vales;
To know the sovereign of the streams and dales,
Their queen-recluse.
The surmise of the love within the rose,
The sense as of a Spirit whose passion glows
In flower and tree,
Links a diviner magic than he knew
To those same valleys Wordsworth wandered through
Yet could not see.
The sense as of a Spirit whose passion glows
In flower and tree,
Links a diviner magic than he knew
To those same valleys Wordsworth wandered through
Yet could not see.
| The Poetical Works of George Barlow | |