A Wayside Cross
A WAYSIDE cross at set of day
Unto my sprit thus did say—
"O soul, my branching arms you see
Point four ways to infinity.
"One points to infinite above,
5
To show the height of heavenly love.
"Two point to infinite width, which shows
That heavenly love no limit knows.
"One points to infinite beneath,
To show God's love is under death.
10
"The four arms join, an emblem sweet
That in God's heart all loves will meet."
I thanked the cross as I turned away
For such sweet thoughts in the twilight grey.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Lines Written on Finishing the Life of Milton
I CLOSED the book, but fancied still
I heard, like distant music roll,
The far-off echoes in my soul
Of his great life. I listened till,
Entranced, I thought that I could hear
5
His grand old voice amid the gloom;
And in the twilight-flooded room
I almost felt that he was near.
Thou didst not die, O Milton, when
Thy life on earth had ceased to be;
10
They never die who pass, like thee,
Enriching all their brother-men.
As often, on the edge of morn,
Lingers one star, its fellows gone,
Thou shin'st alone, and shalt shine on,
15
An age of ages yet unborn.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Isolation
THERE'S a lonely spot in the soul of man,
More lone than the moonless sea;
And a gulf, that never a bridge can span,
'Tween him and all that be;
And the lips we kiss, and the eyes we love,
5
And the glory of golden hair,
Melt like the stars in the mist above,
And shed no sunlight there.
There's a weary voice in the soul of man
That cries for the great "to be,"
10
Like the moan of the worlds when time began,
Or the wail of the wind by the sea;
And only the fall of the faded leaf
And the sigh of the night in the trees,
Can utter the spirit's lonely grief
15
And the sorrow that no one sees.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
On Being Given A Piece Of Edelweiss Before Visiting Switzerland
THINE everlasting mountains and their snows
And awful silence, floweret, know I not;
I have not wandered to thy native spot
Among the crags, but oft as I repose,
Musing by winter fire at daylight's close,
5
In fancy have I viewed those depths of sky
And infinite clouded crags, while fronting high,
Peak upon peak, the eternal Alps uprose.
Mysterious power, God-planted in the soul,
That thus transcends all space and the confined
10
Limits of sense, Imagination hail!
Pledge art thou of that life when death shall roll
Back our flesh prison-bars, and the freed mind
Shall grasp the giant truths behind the veil.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Poet's Empire
WHAT power can break the inner harmonies,
The rich imaginings, heard like distant sea
O'er purple meadow-lands at eve, while we
Look starwards mute? Hopes that like mountains rise
Into mid-heaven, and to entrancèd eyes
5
Horizon-glories of what is to be,—
All these and more lie round us infinitely,
Beyond all language fair in cloudless skies.
This is the poet's empire. Here may he
Reign king-like, throned in splendour and in power
10
No power can shake, so he indeed be king.
Free as the wind, untamèd as the sea,
When earth weighs heavily, most in that hour
He cleaves the heavens in scorn on eagle-wing.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Requiescant
In lonely watches night by night
Great visions burst upon my sight,
For down the stretches of the sky
The hosts of dead go marching by.
Strange ghostly banners o’er them float,
Strange bugles sound an awful note,
And all their faces and their eyes
Are lit with starlight from the skies.
The anguish and the pain have passed
And peace hath come to them at last,
But in the stern looks linger still
The iron purpose and the will.
Dear Christ, who reign’st above the flood
Of human tears and human blood,
A weary road these men have trod,
O house them in the home of God!
[...] Read more
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Inscription
DAY after day,
As I have wandered thro' the fields of life—
Gay, happy fields, bright with the sun and sky—
Flower after flower
Has bloomed beside my path;
5
And I have gathered them, a long-loved handful,
Which I offer now
To the unpitying, cruel-laughing world.
And some are gay,
Sparkling with joy and the bright sun of hope;
10
And some are sad,
Dipped in the crimson of the setting sun,
Or blasted by the cold of winter winds;
Buy all the roots
Are down, far down, within the spirit's depths,
15
Amid the voiceless shadows of the soul,
And each has sprung
[...] Read more
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Words
WORDS are but passing symbols of the deep
Crying unto deep in individual souls.
And men are words on the great voice that rolls
Through Nature, since that morn when from their sleep
The elements heard, and they who vigil keep
5
On Heaven's battlements, to distant poles
Re-echoed, "Let light be!"—such voice as tolls
The birth and death of all who laugh or weep.
Not uniform, but in a wondrous plan,
Each diverse from his fellows, symbol each
10
Of varying thought in the eternal mind.
Now at the feet of every age of man
We sit and learn. Haply, in perfect speech
Its voice will be God's message to our kind.
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Westminster Abbey
'TWAS afternoon in winter, and the light
Sloped softly up the walls, as day was done,
In tremulous cloud-beams, while the westering sun
Blazoned with saints the columns opposite.
All sounds had died away; to left and right
5
Was silence, tho' I seemed to hear again
The spirit-echoes of the last Amen
Far in the groinèd shadowings out of sight.
Oh! silence strange, so deep, so vast, profound;
Ten ages slumber in the dust beneath,
10
And yet no voice,—no voice from those who trod
These aisles before and lie so still around.
Oh! is it that they lose all voice in death,
Seeing what they see, and being so close to God?
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Ode
WHAT boots it to be great?
To live in royal state
And feast with kings,
Since now all things
One doom await?
5
What boots it to be fair?
Sweet eyes and golden hair,
And youthful bloom,
Since in the tomb
All foulness there?
10
To live in royal state—
That is not to be great;
Sweet eyes and golden hair—
That is not to be fair.
What is it to be great?
15
Content with thine estate;
To serve thy God and King
[...] Read more
poem by Frederick George Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!