HOW struggles with the tempest's swells That warning of tumultuous bells! The fire is loose! and frantic knells Throb fast and faster, As tower to tower confusedly tells News of disaster. But on my far-off solitude No harsh alarums can intrude; The terror comes to me subdued And charmed by distance, To deepen the habitual mood Of my existence. Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes? And listen, weaving careless rhymes While the loud city's griefs and crimes Pay gentle allegiance To the fine quiet that sublimes These dreamy regions. And when the storm o'erwhelms the shore, I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, The light revolves amid the roar So still and saintly, Now large and near, now more and more Withdrawing faintly. This, too, despairing sailors see Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee In sudden snow, then lingeringly Wane tow'rd eclipse, While through the dark the shuddering sea Gropes for the ships. And is it right, this mood of mind That thus, in revery enshrined, Can in the world mere topics find For musing stricture, Seeing the life of humankind Only as picture? The events in line of battle go; In vain for me their trumpets blow As unto him that lieth low In death's dark arches, And through the sod hears throbbing slow The muffled marches. O Duty, am I dead to thee In this my cloistered ecstasy, In this lone shallop on the sea That drifts tow'rd Silence? And are those visioned shores I see But sirens' islands? My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, As who would say, "'T is those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean That win the laurel"; But where is Truth? What does it mean, The world-old quarrel? Such questionings are idle air: Leave what to do and what to spare To the inspiring moment's care, Nor ask for payment Of fame or gold, but just to wear Unspotted raiment. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWO FUNERALS: 2. by LOUIS UNTERMEYER ON GEORGE HERBERT'S BOOK, THE TEMPLE, SENT TO A GENTLEWOMAN by RICHARD CRASHAW GOD'S GRANDEUR by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS DRIVING HOME THE COWS by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD THE SCORPION by WILLIAM PLOMER WHITTIER by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER THE SHADOWS by FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN |