When ocean-clouds over inland hills Sweep storming in late autumn brown, And horror the sodden valley fills, And the spire falls crashing in the town, I muse upon my country's ills -- The tempest bursting from the waste of Time On the world's fairest hope linked with man's foulest crime. Nature's dark side is heeded now -- (Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown) -- A child may read the moody brow Of yon black mountain lone. With shouts the torrents down the gorges go, And storms are formed behind the storm we feel: The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FALL OF HYPERION; A DREAM by JOHN KEATS BREAK OF DAY IN THE TRENCHES by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE BROOK: SPRING by LAURA ABELL A PARTING SONG by WILLIAM AITKEN THE IDEAL GENERAL by ARCHILOCHUS THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: BOOK 1. AIR by JOHN ARMSTRONG PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 86. AL-JAMI'H by EDWIN ARNOLD |