 | Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne |  |
PROEM.
Truth wed to beauty in an antique tale,
Sweet-voiced like some immortal nightingale,
Trills the clear burden of her passionate lay,
As fresh, as fair as wonderful to-day
As when the music of her balmy tongue
Ravished the first warm hearts for whom she sung.
Sweet-voiced like some immortal nightingale,
Trills the clear burden of her passionate lay,
As fresh, as fair as wonderful to-day
As when the music of her balmy tongue
Ravished the first warm hearts for whom she sung.
Thus, when the early spring-dawn buds are green,
Glistening beneath the sudden silvery sheen
Of glancing showers; while heaven with bridegroom-kiss
Wakens the virgin earth to bloom and bliss,
Enamored breathing and soft raptures born
About the roseate footsteps of the morn,
An old-world song, whose breezy music pours
Through limpid channels 'twixt enchanted shores,
Steals on me wooingly from that far time
When tuneful Chaucer wrought his lusty rhyme
Into rare shapes and fancies and delight,
For May winds blithely blew, and hawthorn flowers were bright.
O brave old poet! genius frank and bold!
Sustain me, cherish and around me fold
Thine own hale, sun-warm atmosphere of song,
Lest I, who touch thy numbers, do thee wrong;
Speed the deep measure, make the meaning shine
Ruddy and high with healthful spirit wine,
Till to attempered sense and quickening ears
My strain some faint harmonious echo bears
From that rich realm wherein thy cordial art
Throbbed with its pulse of fire 'gainst youthful England's heart.
Glistening beneath the sudden silvery sheen
Of glancing showers; while heaven with bridegroom-kiss
Wakens the virgin earth to bloom and bliss,
Enamored breathing and soft raptures born
About the roseate footsteps of the morn,
An old-world song, whose breezy music pours
Through limpid channels 'twixt enchanted shores,
Steals on me wooingly from that far time
When tuneful Chaucer wrought his lusty rhyme
Into rare shapes and fancies and delight,
For May winds blithely blew, and hawthorn flowers were bright.
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Sustain me, cherish and around me fold
Thine own hale, sun-warm atmosphere of song,
Lest I, who touch thy numbers, do thee wrong;
Speed the deep measure, make the meaning shine
Ruddy and high with healthful spirit wine,
Till to attempered sense and quickening ears
My strain some faint harmonious echo bears
From that rich realm wherein thy cordial art
Throbbed with its pulse of fire 'gainst youthful England's heart.
| Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | |