Poems of Nature, part 3, Reminiscent Poems

Project Gutenberg EBook, Reminiscent Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier Volume II., The Works of Whittier: Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent, Religious Poems?#15 in our series by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Title: Reminiscent Poems , From Poems of Nature,
Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems Volume II., The Works of Whittier
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Release Date: Dec, 2005 [EBook #9570]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on October 2, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REMINISCENT POEMS ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
POEMS OF NATURE
POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT
RELIGIOUS POEMS
BY
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
CONTENTS:
POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT:
MEMORIES?RAPHAEL?EGO?THE PUMPKIN?FORGIVENESS?TO MY SISTER?MY THANKS?REMEMBRANCE?MY NAMESAKE?A MEMORY?MY DREAM?THE BAREFOOT BOY?MY PSALM?THE WAITING
POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT MEMORIES
A beautiful and happy girl,?With step as light as summer air,?Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,?Shadowed by many a careless curl?Of unconfined and flowing hair;?A seeming child in everything,?Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,?As Nature wears the smile of Spring?When sinking into Summer's arms.
A mind rejoicing in the light?Which melted through its graceful bower,?Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,?And stainless in its holy white,?Unfolding like a morning flower?A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,?With every breath of feeling woke,?And, even when the tongue was mute,?From eye and lip in music spoke.
How thrills once more the lengthening chain?Of memory, at the thought of thee!?Old hopes which long in dust have lain?Old dreams, come thronging back again,?And boyhood lives again in me;?I feel its glow upon my cheek,?Its fulness of the heart is mine,?As when I leaned to hear thee speak,?Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies,?I feel thy arm within my own,?And timidly again uprise?The fringed lids of hazel eyes,?With soft brown tresses overblown.?Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,?Of moonlit wave and willowy way,?Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,?And smiles and tones more dear than they!
Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled?My picture of thy youth to see,?When, half a woman, half a child,?Thy very artlessness beguiled,?And folly's self seemed wise in thee;?I too can smile, when o'er that hour?The lights of memory backward stream,?Yet feel the while that manhood's power?Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.
Years have passed on, and left their trace,?Of graver care and deeper thought;?And unto me the calm, cold face?Of manhood, and to thee the grace?Of woman's pensive beauty brought.?More wide, perchance, for blame than praise,?The school-boy's humble name has flown;?Thine, in the green and quiet ways?Of unobtrusive goodness known.
And wider yet in thought and deed?Diverge our pathways, one in youth;?Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,?While answers to my spirit's need?The Derby dalesman's simple truth.?For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,?And holy day, and solemn psalm;?For me, the silent reverence where?My brethren gather, slow and calm.
Yet hath thy spirit left on me?An impress Time has worn not out,?And something of myself in thee,?A shadow from the past, I see,?Lingering, even yet, thy way about;?Not wholly can the heart unlearn?That lesson of its better hours,?Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn?To common dust that path of flowers.
Thus, while at times before our eyes?The shadows melt, and fall apart,?And, smiling through them, round us lies?The warm light of our morning skies,--?The Indian Summer of the heart!?In secret sympathies of mind,?In founts of feeling which retain?Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find?Our early dreams not wholly vain?1841.
RAPHAEL.
Suggested by the portrait of Raphael, at the age of fifteen.
I shall not soon forget that sight?The glow of Autumn's westering day,?A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,?On Raphael's picture lay.
It was a simple print I saw,?The fair face of a musing boy;?Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe?Seemed