 | The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes |  |
THE NEW-BORN STAR.
The world is born to-day!
What is the world?—Behold the wonder:
With a mighty thunder,
'Round the sun, it rolls this way;
And its shadow falls afar
Over many a star,
And the interstellar vale,
Through which some aged, patient globe,
(Whose gaunt sides no summers robe,)
Like a prisoner through his grate,
Shivering in despair doth wait
For sunbeams broken, old, and pale.
What is the world?—Behold the wonder:
With a mighty thunder,
'Round the sun, it rolls this way;
And its shadow falls afar
Over many a star,
And the interstellar vale,
209
(Whose gaunt sides no summers robe,)
Like a prisoner through his grate,
Shivering in despair doth wait
For sunbeams broken, old, and pale.
Bounding, like its own fleet deer
Down a hill, behold the sphere!
Now a mountain, tall and wide,
Hanging weighty on its side
Pulls it down impetuously;
Yet the little butterfly,
Whom the daisy's dew doth glut,
With his wings' small pages shut,
Was not stirred.
Now forests fall, like clouds that gather
O'er the plain's unruffled weather:
Burst great rocks, with thunder, out:
Lakes, their plunged feet about,
Round, and smooth, and heaving ever,
An unawakened serpent-river
Coiled and sleeping.
Silver changes now are creeping
'Round the descending summit of the ball:
Pastures break, and stedfast land
Sinks, melting:—mighty ocean is at hand.—
Space for eternal waves! Be strong and wide,
Thou new-born star! Reflecting all the sky,
And its lone sun, the island-starred tide
Swells billowing by.
At last the dreadful sea is curled
Behind the nations. Mark ye now
The death-intending wrinkles of his brow?
He is the murderous Judas of the world; [OMITTED]
What valley green with stream and tree,
The fairest, sweetest place, [OMITTED]
Down a hill, behold the sphere!
Now a mountain, tall and wide,
Hanging weighty on its side
Pulls it down impetuously;
Yet the little butterfly,
Whom the daisy's dew doth glut,
With his wings' small pages shut,
Was not stirred.
Now forests fall, like clouds that gather
O'er the plain's unruffled weather:
Burst great rocks, with thunder, out:
Lakes, their plunged feet about,
Round, and smooth, and heaving ever,
An unawakened serpent-river
Coiled and sleeping.
Silver changes now are creeping
'Round the descending summit of the ball:
Pastures break, and stedfast land
Sinks, melting:—mighty ocean is at hand.—
Space for eternal waves! Be strong and wide,
Thou new-born star! Reflecting all the sky,
210
Swells billowing by.
At last the dreadful sea is curled
Behind the nations. Mark ye now
The death-intending wrinkles of his brow?
He is the murderous Judas of the world; [OMITTED]
What valley green with stream and tree,
The fairest, sweetest place, [OMITTED]
| The poems posthumous and collected of Thomas Lovell Beddoes | |