Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SUNDAY REVERY, by JAMES RYDER RANDALL Poet's Biography First Line: Beyond my dingy window pane Last Line: Thy blessing on my head! Subject(s): Nature; Sabbath; Spring; Sunday | ||||||||
BEYOND my dingy window pane This beamy Sunday morn, I watch the red-breast on the vane And the ravens robbing corn; Hard by, the Alabama boils Its sallow flood along, With driftwood biers and forest spoils A melancholy throng! The rich horizon melts away To an illumined arch, With summer tresses all astray Upon the brows of March; The birds, inebriate with glees, Seem happiest when they sing, Thrilling the aromatic trees With symphonies of Spring. The pulse of nature throbs anew, Impassioned of the sun; The violet, with eyes of blue, Is modest as a nun. The roses reck not of the strife That crashes up the North; Alas! the mockery of life When Death is striding forth! An alien in this lonely land, I sound an alien strain, Until my own fair State shall stand Inviolate again; The long-lost Pleiad of our sky Is glimmering still afar, And nations yet shall see on high That bright and blesséd star. The church bells toll their solemn chime, From out the minster eaves, Knelling some old religious rhyme, Half stifled by the leaves. A thousand miles away, I hear Those grand Cathedral notes, Which made my youth a fairy sphere With cymbal-clashing throats. Vibrating to each sturdy tone, My soul remembers well The mild Madonna's statue-stone Within its ivory cell; The ritual read, the chanting done The belfry music roll'd, And all my faith, like Whittington, Was in the tales it told! And, oh! I feel as men must feel Who have not wept for years; Upon my cheek behold the seal Of consecrated tears. A mighty Sabbath calm is mine That baffles human lore, A resurrection of Lang Syne, A guiltless child once more. And mother's schoolboy with his mimes, This beamy Sunday morn, Forgets the grim, tumultuous times That hardened him in scorn Forgets terrific ocean days Beyond the tropic gates, Where the Magellan clouds down-gaze On Patagonian Straits. He nothing heeds the long despair Within the savage swamp, The jungle and the thicket where The serpent tribes encamp; He little heeds the dream of Fame, Its treason or its trust, The hope of a sonorous name A requiem from the dust. But oh, he heeds Elysian hours That hint of Long Ago! Those dreamful days in college towers He never more shall know The home he never more may see, A Paradise to him The books he read at Mother's knee When her dear eyes grew dim! O MotherMother! Tears must fleet Along the battle track Ere yet thy lonely heart can greet Its weary wanderer back A deathless love these tears bespeak, For thy devotion shed, With thy pure kisses on my cheek, Thy blessing on my head! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DAT GAL O' MINE by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SUNDAY: NEW GUINEA by KARL SHAPIRO SABBATHS: 2001 by WENDELL BERRY SUNDAYSUNDAYSUNDAYSUNDAYSUNDAY by PAUL BLACKBURN THE SABBATH OF THE SOUL by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD JOHN PELHAM by JAMES RYDER RANDALL |
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