 | By Severn Sea and Other Poems |  |
56
BRISTOL AND CLIFTON
O sweet to hear and feel their strife
That battle in the human cause,
And make their mother Nature's laws,
Work out their higher, richer life.
That battle in the human cause,
And make their mother Nature's laws,
Work out their higher, richer life.
Ay, sweet the whirring of the loom,
And tramping hoof and rolling wain,
And feet that pass and come again,
And dusky, overhanging gloom.
And tramping hoof and rolling wain,
And feet that pass and come again,
And dusky, overhanging gloom.
And sweet to see beside the quays
The stately ships from distant climes,
And hear the pealing steeple-chimes
Half drowned in din of thronging ways.
The stately ships from distant climes,
And hear the pealing steeple-chimes
Half drowned in din of thronging ways.
O sweet to leave the common pen,
To feel a world of wider span,
To cast the appanage of man,
And think of other things than men.
To feel a world of wider span,
To cast the appanage of man,
And think of other things than men.
57
Ay, sweet the sultry summer sleep,
With chirring birds in brake and fern,
With silver laughter of the burn,
With distant plashing of the deep.
With chirring birds in brake and fern,
With silver laughter of the burn,
With distant plashing of the deep.
Or sweet from off some breezy wold
That crowns the rugged-pillared scar,
To catch beyond the woods afar
The sunset ocean shot with gold.
That crowns the rugged-pillared scar,
To catch beyond the woods afar
The sunset ocean shot with gold.
| By Severn Sea and Other Poems | |