 | The Poetical Works of Robert Story |  |
29
Look round on this World.
1822.
Look round on this world—it is sweet, it is fair;
There is light in its sky, there is life in its air;
Sublimity breathes from the forms of its hills,
And beauty winds on with its rivers and rills;
The dew, as with diamonds, its meads hath besprent;
From its groves are a thousand wild melodies sent;
While flowers of each tint are by Morning impearled:
O! why is there woe in so lovely a world?
There is light in its sky, there is life in its air;
Sublimity breathes from the forms of its hills,
And beauty winds on with its rivers and rills;
The dew, as with diamonds, its meads hath besprent;
From its groves are a thousand wild melodies sent;
While flowers of each tint are by Morning impearled:
O! why is there woe in so lovely a world?
Say not that the picture is drawn in a time
When Summer is Queen of the sky and the clime—
Remember young Spring, with her rainbows and songs;
The charm that to Autumn's bright foliage belongs;
And Winter's stern pomp, which no chilled feeling mars
In his snow-shining land, and his concave of stars!
Each change is a joy, or of joy is the herald—
O! why is there woe in so lovely a world?
When Summer is Queen of the sky and the clime—
Remember young Spring, with her rainbows and songs;
The charm that to Autumn's bright foliage belongs;
And Winter's stern pomp, which no chilled feeling mars
In his snow-shining land, and his concave of stars!
Each change is a joy, or of joy is the herald—
O! why is there woe in so lovely a world?
Talk not of a Spectre, whose skeleton hand
Robs the sun of his glory, and darkens the land—
His touch with a power that no talisman knows,
But wraps the worn soul in a moment's repose,
To wake in a region yet fairer than this,
Where the heart never beats but its throb is of bliss!
His flag is but Rapture's bright banner unfurled—
O! why is there woe in so lovely a world?
Robs the sun of his glory, and darkens the land—
His touch with a power that no talisman knows,
But wraps the worn soul in a moment's repose,
To wake in a region yet fairer than this,
Where the heart never beats but its throb is of bliss!
His flag is but Rapture's bright banner unfurled—
O! why is there woe in so lovely a world?
30
It is not in Winter, with cloud and with storm—
There are passions yet wilder that stain and deform!
It is not in Death, with his fear-imaged darts—
There are vices yet deadlier, throned in her hearts!
These mar the Eternal's beneficent plan,
Who furnished this earth as the Eden of man,
By these, through our souls hath disorder been hurled—
O! these have brought woe to so lovely a world!
There are passions yet wilder that stain and deform!
It is not in Death, with his fear-imaged darts—
There are vices yet deadlier, throned in her hearts!
These mar the Eternal's beneficent plan,
Who furnished this earth as the Eden of man,
By these, through our souls hath disorder been hurled—
O! these have brought woe to so lovely a world!
| The Poetical Works of Robert Story | |