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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EYAM, by ANNA SEWARD Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: For one short week I leave, with anxious heart Last Line: Dim apparition thou! -- and bitter in my tear. Alternate Author Name(s): Seward, Nancy Subject(s): Memory; Music & Musicians | |||
FOR one short week I leave, with anxious heart, Source of my filial cares, the Full of Days; Lured by the promise of harmonic Art To breathe her Handel's soul-exalting lays. Pensive I trace the Derwent's amber wave, Foaming through sylvan banks, or view it lave The soft romantic valleys, high o'er-peered By hills and rocks, in savage grandeur reared. Not two short miles from thee, -- can I refrain Thy haunts, my native Eyam, long unseen? Thou, and thy loved inhabitants, again Shall meet my transient gaze. -- Thy rocky screen, Thy airy cliffs I mount; and seek thy shade, Thy roofs, that brow the steep, romantic glade; But, while on me the eyes of friendship glow, Swell my pained sighs, my tears spontaneous flow. In scenes paternal, not beheld through years, Nor viewed till now but by a father's side, Well might the tender tributary tears From keen regrets of duteous fondness glide. Its pastor to this human flock no more Shall the long flight of future days restore; Distant he droops -- and that once gladdening eye Now languid gleams, e'en when his friends are nigh. Through this known walk, where weedy gravel lies Rough and unsightly, by the long coarse grass Of the once smooth and vivid green, with sighs To the deserted rectory I pass; Stray through the darkened chamber's naked bound, Where childhood's earliest, liveliest bliss I found. How changed since erst, the lightsome walls beneath, The social joys did their warm comforts breathe! Ere yet I go, who may return no more, That sacred pile, mid yonder shadowy trees, Let me revisit. -- Ancient massy door, Thou gratest hoarse! My vital spirits freeze, Passing the vacant pulpit to the space Where humble rails the decent altar grace; And where my infant sister's ashes sleep, Whose loss I left the childish sport to weep. Now the low beams, with paper garlands hung In memory of some village youth or maid, Draw the soft tear from thrilled remembrance sprung; How oft my childhood marked that tribute paid; The gloves suspended by the garland's side, White as its snowy flowers, with ribbands tied: Dear village! long these wreaths funereal spread, Simple memorials of thy early dead! But O! thou blank and silent pulpit! thou That with a father's precepts, just and bland, Didst win my ear, as reason's strengthening glow Showed their full value, now thou seem'st to stand Before my sad, suffused and trembling gaze, The dreariest relic of departed days; Of eloquence paternal, nervous, clear, Dim apparition thou! -- and bitter in my tear. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINER NOTES TO AN IMAGINARY PLAYLIST by TERRANCE HAYES VARIATIONS: 13 by CONRAD AIKEN BELIEVE, BELIEVE by BOB KAUFMAN ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN MUSIC by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES THE POWER OF MUSIC by CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES AN OLD CAT'S DYING SOLILOQUY by ANNA SEWARD ELEGY WRITTEN AT THE SEA-SIDE .. ADDRESSED TO HONORIA SNEYD by ANNA SEWARD |
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