Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN ANNIVERSARY, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: O love, it is our wedding day! Last Line: To flood all heaven and earth with song! Subject(s): Anniversaries | ||||||||
O LOVE, it is our wedding day! This morn, -- how swift the seasons flee! -- A virgin morn of cloudless May, You gave your loyal hand to me, Your dainty hand, clasped sweet and sure As Love's sweet self, for evermore! O Love, it is our wedding-day, And memory flies from now to then; I mark the soft heat-lightning play Of blushes o'er your cheek again, And shy but fond foreshadowings rise Of tranquil joy in tender eyes. O Love, it is our wedding-day; The very rustling of your dress, The trembling of your arm that lay On mine, with timorous happiness, Your fluttered breath and faint footfall, -- Ah, sweet, I hear, I see them all! O Love, it is our wedding-day, And backward Time's strange current rolls, Till life's and love's auspicious May Once more is blooming in our souls, And larklike, swell the songs of hope, Your blissful bridal horoscope. O Love, it is our wedding-day, -- Yet say, did those fair hopes but sing, Lapped in the tuneful morn of May, To die or droop on faltering wing, When noontide heats and evening chills Made pale the flowers and veiled the hills? O Love, it is our wedding-day, And none of those glad hopes of youth, Thrilled to its height, outpoured a lay To match our future's simple truth: Though deep the joy of vow and shrine, Our wedded calm is more divine! O Love, it is our wedding-day! Life's summer, with slow-waning beam, Tints the near autumn's cloud-land gray To softness of a fairy dream, Whence peace by musing pathos kissed, Smiles through a veil of golden mist. O Love, it is our wedding-day; The conscious winds are whispering low Those passionate secrets of the May Fraught with your kisses long ago; Warm memories of our years remote Are trembling in the mock-bird's throat. O Love, it is our wedding-day, -- And not a thrush in woodland bowers, And not a rivulet's silvery lay, Nor tiny bee-song 'mid the flowers, Nor any voice of land or sea, But deepens love to ecstasy! Our wedding-day! The soul's noontide! In these rare words at watchful rest What sweet, melodious meanings hide Like birds within one balmy nest, Each quivering with an impulse strong To flood all heaven and earth with song! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ANNIVERSARY by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER FEBRUARY 1944 [OR, THE GIANT WEAPON] by KENNETH REXROTH THE SYMPATHIES OF THE LONG MARRIED by ROBERT BLY TO HIS WIFE ON THE 16TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER WEDDING DAY, WITH A RING by SAMUEL BISHOP EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING DAY: TO PENELOPE by GEORGE GORDON BYRON WEDDING ANNIVERSARY by SYDNEY LEA VERSES TO -- --, ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR MARRIAGE by BERNARD BARTON THE ANNIVERSARY by DAVID BOTTOMS THE ANNIVERSARY by GAMALIEL BRADFORD A STORM IN THE DISTANCE (AMONG THE GEORGIAN HILLS) by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE |
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