 | The poems of Mrs. Emma Catherine Embury |  |
SONNET
TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, WRITTEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE PERUSAL OF HIS POEMS.
My thanks are thine, most gifted one; to theeI owe an hour of intellectual life,
A sweet hour, rescued from the noise, and strife,
And turmoil of the world, which but to see
Or hear of, from afar, is pain to me.
I thank thee for the rich draught thou hast brought
To lips that love the well-springs of pure thought,
Which from thy soul gush up so plenteously.
The hymnings of thy prophet voice awake
Those nobler impulses that, hushed and still,
Lie hidden in our breast, till some wild thrill
Of spirit-life has power their chains to break;
Then from our long inglorious dream we start,
As if an angel's tone had stirred the slumbering heart.
| The poems of Mrs. Emma Catherine Embury | |