The Blog from the Core - Tabb Centenary Year I

Tabb Centenary Year I

Five poems by Rev. John B. Tabb.

To a Songster

O little bird, I’d be
A poet like to thee,
Singing my native song—
Brief to the ear, but long
To love and memory.

April 1902 (p. xvii, Epigraph)

In Solitude

Like as a brook that all night long
Sings, as at noon, a bubble-song
To sleep’s unheeding ear,
The poet to himself must sing,
When none but God is listening
The lullaby to hear.

March 1896 (p. 168, Life and Death: Poetry)

Exaltation

O leaf upon the highest bough,
The poet of the woods art thou
   To whom alone ’tis given—
The farthest from thy place of birth—
To hold communion with the earth,
   Nor lose the light of heaven.

O leaf upon the topmost height,
Amid thy heritage of light
   Unsheltered by a shade,
’Tis thine the loneliness to know
That leans for sympathy below
   Nor finds what it hath made.

May 1895 (p. 26, Nature: Trees)

Hidden

The sweetest warblers—one in light,
And one in darkness, screened from sight—
By voice alone prevail;
So let the poet sing his song,
As far secluded from the throng
As lark or nightingale.

1910 (p. 168, Life and Death: Poetry)

Poetry

A gleam of heaven; the passion of a star
Held captive in the clasp of harmony;
A silence, shell-like, breathing from afar
The rapture of the deep—eternity.

July-August 1892 (p. 359, Quatrains: Miscellaneous)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 01/04/09 12:53:24 PM
Categorized as Father Tabb Centenary Year & Literary.