Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ENIGMA: 12 by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL

First Line: LIVES THERE A POET, OLD OR YOUNG
Last Line: O SAY WHAT CAN I BE?
Subject(s): SPRINGS (MECHANICAL);
LIVES there a poet, old or young,
Who has not sung my praise?
For ever silent be his tongue,
Forgotten be his lays!

I have a father dark and stern,
A daughter bright and gay;
I weep upon his funeral urn,
I die beneath her sway.

And yet that father binds me fast
Hushing my low sweet voice;
That daughter sets me free at last,
And bids me still rejoice.

Deceitful I am said to be,
A thing of treacherous smiles,
And many meet their end in me,
Wreck'd by my sunny wiles.

Yet health and cure 'tis mine to give
To many a sickly frame;
An antelope of Africa
Usurps my well-known name.

I'm born beneath the cold, hard ground,
Yet life and joy I bring,
With song and mirth to all around,
Upon my emerald wing.

I help to measure Time's swift flight;
Tide has to do with me;
In guns and traps behold my might:
O say what can I be?



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