By Severn Sea and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

NATURAL RELIGION

I wandered by the shining river's side,
Tenderly after Spring's first warming rain
Blue the heaven, and blue the mirroring tide;
From end to end of his restored domain
The steely swallow swooped; tufted and pied
With blossom white and gold the meadow plain,
And fringed with rush and reed, whereby did glide
Sweet Thames aripple with rustling glistening train.

I wandered by the steaming river's side,
Sultry and sick the air, a stagnant thread
The shrunken stream erewhile so flush and wide
From pool to pool crawled in his shrivelled bed;
Vanished the springing flowers, yellow and dried
A stubble of withered grass showed in their stead,
And scarce Thames' honest face could be descried
With scummy froth and rotting weed o'erspread.

I wandered by the river's side once more;
As to some mask of death face-cloth and pall

The chill white mists clung close, an iron floor
Hard, cold as death itself, with icy wall
Pent the invisible stream from shore to shore;
Silence was over all, death everywhere,
Death desolate, mute, motionless and frore,
On sullen earth, clogged flood and starving air.

Again I wandered by the river's shore;
Motion was there again, tumult and throes,
For all the surface heaved and cracked and tore
Riven and splintered into jagged floes
That gnashed and justled as they downward bore,
Griding and scoring all the tender bank
And sweeping flotage of wreck and drift before
The ruining hurry of their turbulent rank.—

Then came a warm wet wind, incessantly
The rain descended and the tempest beat
On sodden grass and black unsheltering tree,
Or changed to colder airs with hail and sleet
Lashing the wrinkled flood and shivering lea,
Till all the cleansing cycle was complete,
And joy returned and bright tranquillity,
And to the stream once more I bent my feet:

Nor less than this, nor less than death, I cried,
Than death and dissolution must befall,
Ere earth could see again his summer pride,
Or spring her budding maidenhood recall;
Fair things must fade that beauty may abide,
Love is the purpose as the source of strife,
—So closely link the powers that look so wide,—
And life death's death, and death the life of life!