I LIFT thee, thus, thou brown and rugged cone, Well poised and high, Between the flowering grasses and the sky; And, as sea-voices dwell In the fine chambers of the ocean-shell, So fancy's ear Within thy numberless, dim complexities Hath seemed ofttimes to hear Thc imprisoned spirits of all winds that blow; Winds of late autumn that lamenting moan Across the wild sea-surges' ebb and flow; Storm-winds of winter mellowed to a sigh, Long-drawn and plaintive; or -- how lingeringly! -- Soft echoes of the spring-tide's jocund breeze, Blent with the summer south wind, murmuring low! What wonder, fairy cone, that thou should'st hold The semblance of these voices? day and night, Proudly enthroned upon the wavering height Of yon monarchal pine, thou did'st absorb The elemental virtues of all airs, Timid or bold, Measures of gentle joys and wild despairs, Breathed from all quarters of our changeful orb; Whether with mildness freighted or with might, Into thy form they entered, to remain Each the strange phantom of a perished tone, An eerie, marvellous strain Pent in this tiny Hades made to fold Ghosts of the heavenly couriers long ago, Sunk as men dreamed by ocean and by shore, Into the void of silence evermore! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOMESDAY BOOK: REV. PERCY FERGUSON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS BALLAD OF THE GIBBET by FRANCOIS VILLON THE VOLUNTEER by ELBRIDGE JEFFERSON CUTLER IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYAM by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL YOUTH, DAY, OLD AGE AND NIGHT by WALT WHITMAN THE CHILD IN A GARDEN by MARIA ABDY |