"Patience Taught by Nature"

Random Poetry List LXXVIII

"O dreary life," we cry, "O dreary life!"
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep,—hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show above the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!—
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Originally e-mailed on Monday, October 01, 2001 @ 12:16 PM.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 10/01/08 08:48:41 AM
Categorized as Literary & Random Poetry List.

"A Spirit Haunts The Year's Last Hours"

Random Poetry List LXXVII

A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
          To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
          In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the moldering flowers.
     Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
          Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
     Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
          Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

The air is damp, and hushed, and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
          An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
          And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
     Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
          Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
     Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
          Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Originally e-mailed on Sunday, October 01, 2000 @ 5:53 PM.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 10/01/08 08:41:41 AM
Categorized as Literary & Random Poetry List.