 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
“A POWER THERE IS”
A power there is that trembles through the earth;It lives in nature's mirth,
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It strikes the sunlit plain,
And harvests flash, or bend with rushing rain;
It is not far when tempests make their moan,
And lightnings leap, and bursts the thunder-stone.
It comes in morning's beam of living light,
And the imperial night
Knows it, and all its company of stars,
And the auroral bars.
Through nature all, the subtile current thrills;
It built in flood and fire the crystal hills;
It molds the flowers,
And all the branchèd forests that abide
Forever on the teeming mountain-side.
It lives where music times the soft, processional hours;
And where on that lone hill of art
Proud Phidias carved in stone his lyric heart;
And where wild battle is, and where
Glad lovers breathe in starry night the quivering air.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |