 | The poetical works of Bayard Taylor |  |
STORM-LINES
When the rains of November are dark on the hills, and the pine-trees incessantly roar
To the sound of the wind-beaten crags, and the floods that in foam through their black channels pour:
To the sound of the wind-beaten crags, and the floods that in foam through their black channels pour:
When the breaker-lined coast stretches dimly afar through the desolate waste of the gale,
And the clang of the sea-gull at nightfall is heard from the deep, like a mariner's wail:
And the clang of the sea-gull at nightfall is heard from the deep, like a mariner's wail:
When the gray sky drops low, and the forest is bare, and the laborer is housed from the storm,
And the world is a blank, save the light of his home through the gust shining redly and warm:—
And the world is a blank, save the light of his home through the gust shining redly and warm:—
Go thou forth, if the brim of thy heart with its tropical fulness of life overflow,—
If the sun of thy bliss in the zenith is hung, nor a shadow reminds thee of woe!
If the sun of thy bliss in the zenith is hung, nor a shadow reminds thee of woe!
Leave the home of thy love; leave thy labors of fame; in the rain and the darkness go forth,
When the cold winds unpausingly wail as they drive from the cheerless expanse of the North.
When the cold winds unpausingly wail as they drive from the cheerless expanse of the North.
Thou shalt turn from the cup that was mantling before; thou shalt hear the eternal despair
Of the hearts that endured and were broken at last, from the hills and the sea and the air!
Of the hearts that endured and were broken at last, from the hills and the sea and the air!
Thou shalt hear how the Earth, the maternal, laments for the children she nurtured with tears,—
How the forest but deepens its wail and the breakers their roar, with the march of the years!
How the forest but deepens its wail and the breakers their roar, with the march of the years!
Then the gleam of thy hearth-fire shall dwindle away, and the lips of thy loved ones be still;
And thy soul shall lament in the moan of the storm, sounding wide on the shelterless hill.
11
All the woes of existence shall stand at thy heart, and the sad eyes of myriads implore,
In the darkness and storm of their being, the ray, streaming out through thy radiant door.
In the darkness and storm of their being, the ray, streaming out through thy radiant door.
Look again: how that star of thy Paradise dims, through the warm tears, unwittingly shed;—
Thou art man, and a sorrow so bitterly wrung never fell on the dust of the Dead!
Thou art man, and a sorrow so bitterly wrung never fell on the dust of the Dead!
Let the rain of the midnight beat cold on thy cheek, and the proud pulses chill in thy frame,
Till the love of thy bosom is grateful and sad, and thou turn'st from the mockery of Fame!
Till the love of thy bosom is grateful and sad, and thou turn'st from the mockery of Fame!
Take with humble acceptance the gifts of thy life; let thy joy touch the fountain of tears;
For the soul of the Earth, in endurance and pain, gathers promise of happier years!
For the soul of the Earth, in endurance and pain, gathers promise of happier years!
1849.
| The poetical works of Bayard Taylor | |