The Home Book of Verse, Volume 3 by Burton Egbert Stevenson The Home Book of Verse, Volume 3 by Burton Egbert Stevenson This etext was prepared by Dennis Schreiner, [email protected] The Home Book of Verse, Volume 3 by Burton Egbert Stevenson Contents of Volume I of the two volume set are in our Volume 1 This includes contents of Volumes 1 through 4 of our Etext editions. PART III POEMS OF NATURE The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; page 1 / 666 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. - Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. William Wordsworth [1770-1850] MOTHER NATURE THE BOOK OF THE WORLD Of this fair volume which we World do name, If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, Of him who it corrects, and did it frame, We clear might read the art and wisdom rare; Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame, His providence extending everywhere, His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page, no, period of the same. page 2 / 666 But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold, Fair dangling ribbons, leaving what is best, On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold; Or, if by chance we stay our minds on aught, It is some picture on the margin wrought. William Drummond [1585-1649] NATURE The bubbling brook doth leap when I come by, Because my feet find measure with its call; The birds know when the friend they love is nigh, For I am known to them, both great and small. The flower that on the lonely hillside grows Expects me there when spring its bloom has given; And many a tree and bush my wanderings knows, And e'en the clouds and silent stars of heaven; For he who with his Maker walks aright, Shall be their lord as Adam was before; His ear shall catch each sound with new delight, Each object wear the dress that then it wore; And he, as when erect in soul he stood, Hear from his Father's lips that all is good. page 3 / 666 Jones Very [1813-1880] COMPENSATION In that new world toward which our feet are set, Shall we find aught to make our hearts forget Earth's homely joys and her bright hours of bliss? Has heaven a spell divine enough for this? For who the pleasure of the spring shall tell When on the leafless stalk the brown buds swell, When the grass brightens and the days grow long, And little birds break out in rippling song? O sweet the dropping eve, the blush of morn, The starlit sky, the rustling fields of corn, The soft airs blowing from the freshening seas, The sunflecked shadow of the stately trees, The mellow thunder and the lulling rain, The warm, delicious, happy summer rain, When the grass brightens and the days grow long, And little birds break out in rippling song! O beauty manifold, from morn till night, Dawn's flush, noon's blaze and sunset's tender light! O fair, familiar features, changes sweet page 4 / 666 Of her revolving seasons, storm and sleet And golden calm, as slow she wheels through space, From snow to roses, - and how dear her face, When the grass brightens, when the days grow long, And little birds break out in rippling song! O happy earth! O home so well beloved! What recompense have we, from thee removed? One hope we have that overtops the whole, - The hope of finding every vanished soul, We love and long for daily, and for this Gladly we turn from thee, and all thy bliss, Even at thy loveliest, when the days are long, And little birds break out in rippling song. Celia Thaxter [1835-1894] THE LAST HOUR O joys of love and joys of fame, It is not you I shall regret; I sadden lest I should forget The beauty woven in earth's name: The shout and battle of the gale, page 5 / 666 The stillness of the sun-rising, The sound of some deep hidden spring, The glad sob of the filling sail, The first green ripple of the wheat, The rain-song of the lifted leaves, The waking birds beneath the eaves, The voices of the summer heat. Ethel Clifford [18 - NATURE O Nature! I do not aspire To be the highest in thy choir, - To be a meteor in thy sky, Or comet that may range on high; Only a zephyr that may blow Among the reeds by the river low; Give me thy most privy place Where to run my airy race. In some withdrawn, unpublic mead Let me sigh upon a reed, Or in the woods, with leafy din, page 6 / 666 Whisper the still evening in: Some still work give me to do, - Only - be it near to you! For I'd rather be thy child And pupil, in the forest wild, Than be the king of men elsewhere, And most sovereign slave of care; To have one moment of thy dawn, Than share the city's year forlorn. Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862] SONG OF NATURE Mine are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gull of space, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days. I hide in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, In slumber I am strong. page 7 / 666 No numbers have counted my tallies, No tribes my house can fill, I sit by the shining Fount of Life And pour the deluge still; And ever by delicate powers Gathering along the centuries From race on race the rarest flowers, My wreath shall nothing miss. And many a thousand summers My gardens ripened well, And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell. I wrote the past in characters Of rock and fire the scroll, The building in the coral sea, The planting of the coal. And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew, And out of spent and aged things I formed the world anew; page 8 / 666 What time the gods kept carnival, Tricked out in star and flower, And in cramp elf and saurian forms They swathed their too much power. Time and Thought were my surveyors, They laid their courses well, They boiled the sea, and piled the layers Of granite, marl and shell. But he, the man-child glorious, - Where tarries he the while? The rainbow shines his harbinger, The sunset gleams his smile. My boreal lights leap upward, Forthright my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The summit of the whole. Must time and tide forever run? Will never my winds go sleep in the west? Will never my wheels which whirl the sun And satellites have rest? page 9 / 666 Too much of donning and doffing, Too slow the rainbow fades, I weary of my robe of snow, My leaves and my cascades; I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is played; What without him is summer's pomp, Or winter's frozen shade? I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate. Twice I have moulded an image, And thrice outstretched my hand, Made one of day and one of night And one of the salt sea-sand. One in a Judaean manger, And one by Avon stream, One over against the mouths of Nile, And one in the Academe. page 10 / 666 I moulded kings and saviors, And bards o'er kings to rule; - But fell the starry influence short, The cup was never full. Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, And mix the bowl again; Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain. Let war and trade and creeds and song Blend, ripen race on race, The sunburnt world a man shall breed Of all the zones and countless days. No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, My oldest force is good as new, And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens in dew. Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] "GREAT NATURE IS AN ARMY GAY" page 11 / 666 Great nature is an army gay, Resistless marching on its way; I hear the bugles clear and sweet, I hear the tread of million feet. Across the plain I see it pour; It tramples down the waving grass; Within the echoing mountain-pass I hear a thousand cannon roar. It swarms within my garden gate; My deepest well it drinketh dry. It doth not rest; it doth not wait; By night and day it sweepeth by; Ceaseless it marcheth by my door; It heeds me not, though I implore. I know not whence it comes, nor where It goes. For me it doth not care - Whether I starve, or eat, or sleep, Or live, or die, or sing, or weep.