Mary Arden
When a simple English maiden,
Nested warm in Wilmicote,
Sang forth like a lark uprising
Heavenward with its morning note,
Did no English ear that listened,
Even then, foretouched by fame,
Tremble to the prophet-music
Fountain-headed in thy name,
Mary Arden?
And to thee thyself, O tell me!
Shade of Shakespeare’s mother, tell me!
Did no dazzling vision come,
Banishing all thoughts of gloom,
Of the bardic grandeurs waiting
On thy matron fate, when He
Who in time should call thee mother
Should all time’s subjector be,
Mary Arden?
Then a mother we behold thee,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Bush Justice
A Dealer, bewitched by gain-promising dreams
Settled down near my Station, to trade with my Teams,
And to sell to, my men too! from whom, through the nose,
Until then, I had screw'd just what prices I chose;
And for this, to be sure, I so hated the man,
That I swore ne'er to rest till I'd settled some plan
Whereby in the Lockup to cleverly cram him!
And so to my Super the matter I put,
Who thereupon 'found' a sheep's head near his hut,
And the 'how came it there?' was sufficient to damn him,
The Beak before who I then lugg'd him, as you
May suppose, being neck-deep in Squattery too.
'Twas a beautiful Hearing, as noted at large
By the Clerk (who was bonuss'd)-sheep-stealing the charge;
'Twould make your hearts laugh in the Records to see
How we bullied him out of his wits! -I say we,
Because while on this side against him 1 banged,
On the other the Beak said he ought to be hanged,
For a gallows-grained, scandalous son of transgression!
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Onward
Have the blasts of sorrow worn thee,
Have the rocks of danger torn thee,
And thus shifted, wreck-like drifted,
Wouldst thou find a port in time?
Vain the quest! That word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!
Hast thou done all loving duty,
Hast thou clothed thy soul with beauty,
And wouldst rest then, wholly blest then,
In some sunny lapse of time?
Vain the hope! The word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!
Hast thou won the heart of glory,
Hast thou charmed the tongue of story,
And wouldst pause then for applause then,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Tree of Liberty
WE’LL PLANT a Tree of Liberty
In the centre of the land,
And round it ranged as guardians be,
A vowed and trusty band;
And sages bold and mighty soul’d
Shall dress it day by day:
But woe unto the traitor who
Would break one branch away.
Then sing the Tree of Liberty
For the vow that we have made;
May it so flourish that when we
Are buried in its shade,
Fair Womanhood and Love and Good,
All pilgrims pure shall go
Its growth to bless for happiness—
O may it flourish so!
Till felled by gold as bards have told,
In the Old World once it grew,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Anchor
Firm trust of the bold sailor on the shores of sudden storm,
What strength is in its structure and the fitness of its form!
Old ocean’s bed-rock gripping, with the hurricane’s tug ’twill cope,
And therefore ’tis the emblem held of man’s eternal hope.
Through the billows ceaseless raging, by the bleak and stormy steep,
Like a thunderbolt down-rushing it is shot into the deep;
Down where some mute sea-monster its so hideous bulk uprears,
And mightiest silence drowned hath lain for many a thousand years.
In some famed bay of battle when ’tis plunged with sullen roar,
In the Nile, In Navarino, or by Danish Elsinore,
How deep there shall its slumbers be beneath the sounding waves,
Amid the bones of gallant tars in glory’s watery graves.
In the bright and landlocked harbour, the weary voyage o’er,
When only pleasant breezes breathe sweet welcome from the shore,
Its massive form down-dropping to its quiet bed below
Gives signal to the first glad boat that beachward pants to go.
In the calm thou firm-fixed surety, thou strong helper in the storm,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Coleridge's Cristabel
Mark yon runnel, how ’tis flowing,
Like a sylvan spirit dreaming
Of the spring-blooms near it blowing,
And the sunlight o’er it beaming—
Bright from bank to bank, or growing
Darkly inter-freaked, when streaming
Where some willowy shade hangs bending
O’er it in green mingled masses—
Lights and shades and blossoms glowing,
All for greater beauty blending
In its vision as it passes.
Where that shelving rock is spied,
There, with a smooth warbling slide,
It lapses down into a cool
And brimming, not o’erflowing, pool
Then between its narrowed banks,
Playing merry gurgling pranks,
It gushes, till a channel’d stone
Gives it a more strenuous tone.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Master Mariner’s Song
(Outward Bound)
AWAY, away she plunges
With her white sails o’er her spread,
Like the summer clouds that gather
On some hill’s piny head;
Still away she plunges rampant
Like a lion roused to wrath,
And the proud wave lies humbled
I’ the track of her path.
Ye ho! my gallant sailors
Wear her head from off the land:
As his steed obeys the Arab
How she gives to the hand!
And now like a soul the world forsaking,
She leaves the coast behind,
And the main is her wide dwelling
And her spouse is the wind.
Then pledge we a full measure
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Drunkard
Disease was lurking in the cup!
Disastrous folly mantling there!
For promised joys he quaffed it up—
And his were ruin and despair!
Yes—so deceived he tasted first,
And fashion the delusion nurst,
Till with the texture of his life
It wove a warp of madness, agony, and strife.
The festive bowl!—to that he owes
Those drops of shame which now bedew
His burning brows—the hell of woes
His haggard spirit rushing through!
Young, innocent, he took the road
That leads to honor’s bright abode;
But joined, unwarned, upon the way
A bacchanalian troop—there stationed to betray.
Oh, could he but recall the past!
Oh, could he be what he had been!
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Babylonian Captivity
By far Euphrates’ stream we state,
A weary band of herded slaves,
And over Judah’s fallen estate
We wept into the passing waves.
On willow-boughs that o’er us bent
Our once glad-sounding harps were hung,
That but the wild wind, as it went,
Might grieve their wailful chords among.
But they who spoiled us—even they
Who wasted us with daily wrongs,
To make them mirth did asking say:
“Come sing us one of Zion’s songs!”
How can with us the will remain
To strike the harp with fettered hand?
How can we sing a joyful strain
As captives in a foreign land?
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Humanity
I dreamed I was a sculptor, and had wrought
Out of a towering adamantine crag
A mighty figure, stately, giant-limbed,
And with the face of a Homeric god.
Planted aloft upon the levelled cone
Of a vast tumulus, that seemed to swell
Above the sinking outline of the view
As up from the dusk past, firm fixed it stood,
Full in the face of the resplendent morn
Against the deep of heaven all flecked with clouds;
And I methought was glorying in my work
One large arm lay upon the powerful breast,
The other held a scroll. The ample head,
Majestic in its dome-like curvatures,
Looked heedful out with full expectant eyes
Over the brightening world, and in the lines
And gracious curves of nostrils and of lips
You traced the use of smiles. But on the brows
There pained a weight and weariness of thought,
And furrows spake of care. Much, too, of doubt
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!