Six Centuries of English Poetry: Tennyson to Chaucer

Name: Six Centuries of English Poetry: Tennyson to Chaucer
Author: Baldwin, James

Baldwin, James

English poetry

O joy, that in our embers
           Is something that doth live,
           That nature yet remembers
           What was so fugitive!
     The thought of our past years in me doth breed
     Perpetual benediction: not indeed
     For that which is most worthy to be blest--
     Delight and liberty, the simple creed
     Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
     With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
           Not for these I raise
           The song of thanks and praise;
         But for those obstinate questionings
         Of sense and outward things,
         Fallings from us, vanishings;{17}
         Blank misgivings{18} of a creature
     Moving about in worlds not realized,
     High instincts before which our mortal nature
     Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
           But for those first affections,
           Those shadowy recollections,
         Which, be they what they may,
     Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
     Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
       Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
     Our noisy years seem moments in the being
     Of the eternal silence: truths that wake,
           To perish never;
     Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
           Nor man nor boy,
     Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
     Can utterly abolish or destroy!
           Hence in a season of calm weather,
           Though inland far we be,
     Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
         Which brought us hither,
           Can in a moment travel thither,
     And see the children sport upon the shore,
     And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.


X.

     Then sing, ye birds! sing, sing a joyous song!
           And let the young lambs bound
           As to the tabor's sound!
     We in thought will join your throng,
           Ye that pipe and ye that play,
           Ye that through your hearts to-day
           Feel the gladness of the May!
     What though the radiance which was once so bright
     Be now forever taken from my sight,
       Though nothing can bring back the hour
     Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower?
           We will grieve not, rather find
           Strength in what remains behind;
           In the primal sympathy
           Which, having been, must ever be;
           In the soothing thoughts that spring
           Out of human suffering;
           In the faith that looks through death,
     In years that bring the philosophic mind.


XI.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Six Centuries of English Poetry: Tennyson to Chaucer

No reviews yet