Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TENT by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHY SHOULD A MAN RAISE STONE AND WOOD
Last Line: THE HOMELESS OCEAN-FOAM!
Subject(s): TENTS;
WHY should a man raise stone and wood
Between him and the sky?
Why should he fear the brotherhood
Of all things from on high?
Why should a man not raise his form
As shelterless and free
As stands in sunshine or in storm
The mountain and the tree?

Or if we thus, as creatures frail
Before our time should die,
And courage and endurance fail
Weak Nature to supply; --
Let us at least a dwelling choose,
The simplest that can keep
From parching heat and noxious dews
Our pleasure and our sleep.

The Fathers of our mortal race,
While still remembrance nursed
Traditions of the glorious place
Whence Adam fled accursed, --
Rested in tents, as best became
Children, whose mother earth
Had overspread with sinful shame
The beauty of her birth.

In cold they sought the sheltered nook,
In heat the airy shade,
And oft their casual home forsook
The morrow it was made;
Diverging many separate roads,
They wandered, fancy-driven,
Nor thought of other fixed abodes
Than Paradise or Heaven.

And while this holy sense remained,
'Mid easy shepherd cares,
In tents they often entertained
The Angels unawares:
And to their spirits' fervid gaze
The mystery was revealed,
How the world's wound in future days
Should by God's love be healed.

Thus we, so late and far a link
Of generation's chain,
Delight to dwell in tents, and think
The old world young again;
With Faith as wide and Thought as narrow
As theirs, who little more
From life demanded than the sparrow
Gay-chirping by the door.

The Tent! how easily it stands,
Almost as if it rose
Spontaneous from the green or sand,
Express for our repose:
Or, rather, it is we who plant
This root, where'er we roam,
And hold, and can to others grant,
The comforts of a home.

Make the Divan -- the carpets spread,
The ready cushions pile;
Rest, weary heart! rest, weary head!
From pain and pride awhile:
And all your happiest memories woo,
And mingle with your dreams
The yellow desert glimmering through
The subtle veil of beams.

We all have much we would forget --
Be that forgotten now!
And placid Hope, instead, shall set
Her seal upon your brow:
Imagination's prophet eye
By her shall view unfurled
The future greatnesses that lie
Hid in the Eastern world.

To slavish tyrannies their term
Of terror she foretells;
She brings to bloom the faith whose germ
In Islam deeply dwells;
Accomplishing each mighty birth
That shall one day be born
From marriage of the western earth
With nations of the morn!

Then fold the Tent -- then on again;
One spot of ashen black,
The only sign that here has lain
The traveller's recent track:
And gladly forward, safe to find
At noon and eve a home,
Till we have left our Tent behind,
The homeless ocean-foam!



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