 | Poems |  |
BY DAY.
This solemn warfare of mysterious waves,
This sobbing gush of a Titanic grief,
The earth's great heart unto the listening winds,
Hath wailed forth through the awed Eternities,
Whose wings have shuddered o'er it as they past:
From multitudinous fountains in the depths
Of cavernous glooms, roll the exhaustless floods,
Thence startled in some immemorial shock
Of earthquake and of tempest, some dread strife
Of orb with orb in the black void of Heaven,
When ocean-tides rushed over Continents,
And mountains tottered to chaotic fall,
And the majestic roar of elements
Shook the crazed Air, and the affrighted Space
Quivered beneath the burden of the blast.
The vexèd waters whirled from bursting veins,
That coursed the tortured world's disruptured frame,
Hissing their separate fury on the storm,—
This sobbing gush of a Titanic grief,
The earth's great heart unto the listening winds,
Hath wailed forth through the awed Eternities,
Whose wings have shuddered o'er it as they past:
From multitudinous fountains in the depths
Of cavernous glooms, roll the exhaustless floods,
Thence startled in some immemorial shock
Of earthquake and of tempest, some dread strife
Of orb with orb in the black void of Heaven,
When ocean-tides rushed over Continents,
And mountains tottered to chaotic fall,
And the majestic roar of elements
Shook the crazed Air, and the affrighted Space
Quivered beneath the burden of the blast.
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That coursed the tortured world's disruptured frame,
Hissing their separate fury on the storm,—
The weaker fountains, and mild cataracts,
Lessened their flow, the green wolds bloomed once more,
But unrestrained this universe of tides,
With voice of warning and of prophecy,
Speaks to us of what hath been, and may be.
Lessened their flow, the green wolds bloomed once more,
But unrestrained this universe of tides,
With voice of warning and of prophecy,
Speaks to us of what hath been, and may be.
From the reverberant Hell that groans below,
Ev'n from that Hell tumultuous floats to Heaven,
The balmy incense of the Beautiful;
Empurpled mists the sunshine woos to glory,
Mounting, like ransomed souls, to the Great Soul,
And lost in grand beatitudes of light.
Ev'n from that Hell tumultuous floats to Heaven,
The balmy incense of the Beautiful;
Empurpled mists the sunshine woos to glory,
Mounting, like ransomed souls, to the Great Soul,
And lost in grand beatitudes of light.
| Poems | |