Thomas Cole's poetry the collected poems of America's foremost painter of the Hudson River School reflecting his feelings for nature and the romantic spirit of the Nineteenth Century |
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43. | [43. Thou frail and feeble vine!] |
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![]() | Thomas Cole's poetry | ![]() |
97
[43. Thou frail and feeble vine!]
Thou frail and feeble vine!
Year after year I watch with pitying eye
Thy delicate fingers twine
Around that oak, whose sturdy branches high
Wave in the sun, in fruitless vain essay
To rise from the dismal shade to glorious day.
Year after year I watch with pitying eye
Thy delicate fingers twine
Around that oak, whose sturdy branches high
Wave in the sun, in fruitless vain essay
To rise from the dismal shade to glorious day.
In summer's genial hour
Thy leaves and light-green tendrils stretch aloft
With hope-inspiring power:
But Winter comes too soon and all thy soft
Thy young, gay foilage shrinks in sudden death
And the old stem alone remains beneath.
Thy leaves and light-green tendrils stretch aloft
With hope-inspiring power:
But Winter comes too soon and all thy soft
Thy young, gay foilage shrinks in sudden death
And the old stem alone remains beneath.
My fate resembles thine—
I toil to gain a sunnier realm of light
And excellence—waste and pine
In the low shadow of this world of night.—
I toil to gain a sunnier realm of light
And excellence—waste and pine
In the low shadow of this world of night.—
The genial season sometimes bear me up
'Till hope persuades I ne'er again shall stoop;
But quickly come the withering blast to blight
My rich and prided growth—and I remain
The same low thing to bud—to fade again.
'Till hope persuades I ne'er again shall stoop;
But quickly come the withering blast to blight
My rich and prided growth—and I remain
The same low thing to bud—to fade again.
July 22, 1838
![]() | Thomas Cole's poetry | ![]() |