 | Poems by a Painter |  |
115
THRENODY.
The spider in the jasmine leaves,
Her fairy web of silver weaves;
All round the breezy cottage eaves
I hear the busy swallows:
The bee hums round his mossy door,
The stream flows on with joyous roar,
The starry ripples race ashore
Across the gleaming shallows.
Her fairy web of silver weaves;
All round the breezy cottage eaves
I hear the busy swallows:
The bee hums round his mossy door,
The stream flows on with joyous roar,
The starry ripples race ashore
Across the gleaming shallows.
Sheep are bleating, kine are lowing,
Children shouting, barn-fowl crowing,
Winds athwart the mountains blowing
Waves of shine and shadow:
To their lightsome labour bound
The merry reapers, autumn-browned;
And the dripping wheel goes round,
By the mill-dams in the meadow.
Children shouting, barn-fowl crowing,
Winds athwart the mountains blowing
Waves of shine and shadow:
To their lightsome labour bound
The merry reapers, autumn-browned;
116
By the mill-dams in the meadow.
Like living chords of one great lyre,
Swept by a seraph's plumes of fire,
Like voices of one mighty choir
Blent in one psalm of gladness,
All things rejoice; my heart, alone
Discordant, yields no joyous tone,
But one dull, inarticulate moan,
One weary wail of sadness.
Swept by a seraph's plumes of fire,
Like voices of one mighty choir
Blent in one psalm of gladness,
All things rejoice; my heart, alone
Discordant, yields no joyous tone,
But one dull, inarticulate moan,
One weary wail of sadness.
Even as a blasted tree may stand,
All leafless in a summer-land,
In vain by genial breezes fanned,
By shower and sunshine haunted;
So, sunned by all the warm delight
Of this young day—so purely bright—
I stand in darkness, by the might
Of Memory enchanted.
All leafless in a summer-land,
In vain by genial breezes fanned,
By shower and sunshine haunted;
So, sunned by all the warm delight
Of this young day—so purely bright—
I stand in darkness, by the might
Of Memory enchanted.
117
I see the infinite loveliness
Of God's fair universe—can bless
His creatures in their blessedness,
Despite my own heart's aching:
But never more my soul may know
The thrill of sympathy, the glow
Of love that stirred it long ago,
In youth's divine upwaking.
Of God's fair universe—can bless
His creatures in their blessedness,
Despite my own heart's aching:
But never more my soul may know
The thrill of sympathy, the glow
Of love that stirred it long ago,
In youth's divine upwaking.
| Poems by a Painter | |