Poems New and Old eBook

John Freeman (Georgian poet)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 177 pages of information about Poems New and Old.

Poems New and Old eBook

John Freeman (Georgian poet)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 177 pages of information about Poems New and Old.
hill.
...  I could not think but that a God grown old
Saw in a dream or waking all this round of bold
And wavelike hills, and knew them but a thought,
Or but a wave uptost and poised awhile then caught
Back to the sea with waves a million more
That rise and pause and break at last upon the shore. 
A God, a God saw first those hills that I
Saw now immense upholding the starry crowded sky: 
His breath the mist that clung their shoulders round,
His slow unconscious sigh that easeless floating sound. 
Ere mine his thought failed under each rough height
And then was brave, seeing the stars climb calm and bright. 
Ere they were named he named them in his mood,
Like varying children of one giant warring brood—­
Broad-Foot, Cloud-Gatherer, Long-Back, Winter-Head,
Bravery and Bright-Face and that long Home of the Dead;
And their still waters glittering in his glance
Named Buckler, Silver Dish, Two Eyes and Shining Lance,
Names unrecorded, but the circling wind
Remembers and repeats them to the listening mind.... 
That mind was mine.  At Shining Lance I stared
Between Long-Back and Winter-Head as the new sun bared
The Lake and heights of shadow and the wan gold
Deepened and new warmth came into the light’s sharp cold. 
And the near trees shivered no more but shook
Their music over Shining Lance; and the excited brook
Freshened in the sun’s eye and tossed his spray
High and sparkling, and then sprang dancing, dancing away. 
But Winter-Head and Long-Back, gravely bright,
Stood firm as if for ever and a day and a night—­
As they were more than a wave before ’tis caught
Back to the tossing tide, more than a flying thought,
More than a dream that an old God once dreamed
When visionary not at all visionary seemed.

THE POND

Gray were the rushes
Beside the budless bushes,
  Green-patched the pond. 
The lark had left soaring
Though yet the sun was pouring
  His gold here and beyond.

Bramble-branches held me,
But had they not compelled me
  Yet had I lingered there
Hearing the frogs and then
Watching the water-hen
  That stared back at my stare.

There amid the bushes
Were blackbird’s nests and thrush’s,
  Soon to be hidden
In leaves on green leaves thickening,
Boughs over long boughs quickening
  Swiftly, unforbidden.

The lark had left singing
But song all round was ringing,
  As though the rushes
Were sighingly repeating
And mingling that most sweet thing
  With the sweet note of thrushes.

That sweetness rose all round me,
But more than sweetness bound me,
  A spirit stirred;
Shadowy and cold it neared me,
Then shrank as if it feared me—­
  But ’twas I that feared.

TEN O’CLOCK NO MORE [1]

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Poems New and Old from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.