Golden Histories, etc By Wathen Mark Wilks Call |
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Influences
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 | Golden Histories, etc |  |
197
Influences
The World still gives what most seems ours,
Its beauty silent, ripe, and sweet,
Its truth, which we are proud to greet,
Still moulds and strengthens all our powers.
The doctrine embodied in this poem—written more than twenty years ago, and first published in the Athenæum—is finely touched in a remarkable article on Shelley, by “One who knew him,” in the Allantic Monthly for February, 1863. “The ability to receive influence is the most exalted faculty which human nature can attain; while the exercise of an arbitrary power centering in itself is not only debasing, but is an actual destroyer of human faculty.”
Its beauty silent, ripe, and sweet,
Its truth, which we are proud to greet,
Still moulds and strengthens all our powers.
The sun, round whom the planets glide,
The moon, that gives the light she takes,
The flowers in meadows and in brakes,
The flowing and the ebbing tides.
The moon, that gives the light she takes,
The flowers in meadows and in brakes,
The flowing and the ebbing tides.
The granite rock, on which are laid,
Level or slanted, marl and stone,
With blooms and mosses overgrown,
Meek children of the Sun and shade.
Level or slanted, marl and stone,
With blooms and mosses overgrown,
Meek children of the Sun and shade.
The bridging rainbow; the blue gloom
That in romantic gorges sleeps,
The floating amber mist that creeps
O'er dreamy fields where cowslips bloom.
That in romantic gorges sleeps,
The floating amber mist that creeps
O'er dreamy fields where cowslips bloom.
198
The pale-green, azure light that gleams
Round the sky's rim when suns are low,
Full of a sweet dead Long-ago,
Yet breathing Hope's delicious dreams.
Round the sky's rim when suns are low,
Full of a sweet dead Long-ago,
Yet breathing Hope's delicious dreams.
The World still gives what most seems ours,
Sun, moon, and wave, with clouds that die,
And trees that yearn to reach the sky,
Fashion our minds and mould our powers.
Sun, moon, and wave, with clouds that die,
And trees that yearn to reach the sky,
Fashion our minds and mould our powers.
Men whom we champion, wrong or right,
And women fond with fragrant breath,
Flowing thro'lips that kiss till death,
And eyelids trembling with delight.
And women fond with fragrant breath,
Flowing thro'lips that kiss till death,
And eyelids trembling with delight.
The children that about us play,
With golden hair and soft white flesh,
Smooth as magnolia flowers, and fresh
Full cheeks that blush like dawning day.
With golden hair and soft white flesh,
Smooth as magnolia flowers, and fresh
Full cheeks that blush like dawning day.
The songs the elder poets sung,
The lays of Greece, the Hebrew's psalm,
The thought of wise men, grave and calm,
Late-born or dead when Time was young.
The lays of Greece, the Hebrew's psalm,
The thought of wise men, grave and calm,
Late-born or dead when Time was young.
The soul is like a mirror fair,
Reflecting every shape and hue,
Yet as it changes, changing too
All that we know and all we are.
Reflecting every shape and hue,
Yet as it changes, changing too
All that we know and all we are.
199
The World still gives what most seems ours;
As ebbs and flows, in calm and strife,
This everlasting sea of life,
So ebb and flow our human powers.
As ebbs and flows, in calm and strife,
This everlasting sea of life,
So ebb and flow our human powers.
| Golden Histories, etc | |