The Last Poems of Richard Watson Dixon ... Selected and Edited by Robert Bridges: With a Preface by M. E. Coleridge |
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THE SILENT HEAVENS |
 | The Last Poems of Richard Watson Dixon |  |
30
THE SILENT HEAVENS
Here I wander about, and here I mournfully ponder:
Weary to me is the sun, weary the coming of night:
Here is captivity still, there would be captivity yonder:
Like to myself are the rest, smitten is all with a blight.
Weary to me is the sun, weary the coming of night:
Here is captivity still, there would be captivity yonder:
Like to myself are the rest, smitten is all with a blight.
Much I complain of my state to my own heart heavily beating:
Much to the stars I complain: much to the universe cold;
The stars that of old were fixed, in spheres their courses repeating;
Solidly once were they fixed, and with them their spheres were rolled.
Much to the stars I complain: much to the universe cold;
The stars that of old were fixed, in spheres their courses repeating;
Solidly once were they fixed, and with them their spheres were rolled.
Then through the space of the spheres to the steadfast empyrean
Echo on echo to Earth answered her manifold cries:
Earth was the centre of things, and the threne of all, or the pæan,
Bearing hell in her heart, on her bosom all life that dies.
Echo on echo to Earth answered her manifold cries:
Earth was the centre of things, and the threne of all, or the pæan,
Bearing hell in her heart, on her bosom all life that dies.
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If they were fixed, as of old, in their firmament solid and vaulted,
Then might the echo of woe or of laughter reverberate thence:
Nor my voice alone, but to them all voices exalted,
Should with due answer be met, murmuring sweet to the sense.
Then might the echo of woe or of laughter reverberate thence:
Nor my voice alone, but to them all voices exalted,
Should with due answer be met, murmuring sweet to the sense.
But they roll on their way through the void, the inane unretentive:
Past them all voices stream into the echoless space.
Where is the pitying grace, that once was prayer's incentive,
Where is the ear that heard, and the face that once answered to face?
Past them all voices stream into the echoless space.
Where is the pitying grace, that once was prayer's incentive,
Where is the ear that heard, and the face that once answered to face?
| The Last Poems of Richard Watson Dixon | |