Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON ROMNEY MARSH AT SUNRISE, by HERBERT TRENCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON ROMNEY MARSH AT SUNRISE, by                     Poet's Biography
Last Line: Lest it have sight no more
Subject(s): Swamps; Love


Out at sunrise on Romney Marsh
''aWe hear the curlew call,
The young lambs crying to the sheep
''aWithin the old sea-wall;

The bleak tree that the sea-wind strikes
''aIs bowed across the lilied dykes,
All heaven drifting with the lark,
''aThe lark that sings for all.
You gather mushrooms from the grass,

''aThe newborn mushrooms white,
And stoop about with tender cries
''aThat come of pure delight.
The sheep-lit pastures run for miles
''aWith distant villages for isles,

And Lymne's grey castle on the down
''aBeholds us from the height.
From that light-impassion'd vast of bliss
''aThat never a shade devours
Falls not upon us both the kiss

''aOf new-awakening powers?
O'er-vaulting golden cloudlets race
''aEastwards, and leave us time and space;
Strange winds and clouds and falls of sheen
''aMix'd at this birth of flowers!

We are breakers-in upon some scene
''aMeant for new eyes like ours.
Shall then the very core of life
''aRouse on the harp no string?
Shall they be dumb, those radiances,

''aThat have so fleet a wing?
Shall it awake, the great sunrise,
''aTo perish all unheard,
And the soul's wide flights of melodies
''aFail, for a narrow word?

Since we must forth, like gallant ships,
''aFar from the haven'd land,
Since we must melt like sandy smoke
''aThat blows along the strand,
Since we must bow and part in grief,

''aLike the rushes or the driven leaf,
O put not on my singing lips
''aThe proud seal of your hand!
Ah, lovely Silence!''"Voices parting''"
''aAnswering, through light we breathe

In clearness and in glory once,
''aAre all we can bequeathe.
E'en mad winds joy''"all that have breath
''aArise, and break to flame;
Hour ineffaceable as death

''aShalt thou not have a name?
Exquisite Spirit, in whose eyes
''aFloats the unseeing ray''"
Though utterance scorch, between us two,
Let my fierce spirit reach to you''"

''aBe silence torn away!
Now wave meets wave; and dull grief's weight.
''aO'erwhelming time, ascends,
Now the shaken soul's half-agony
''aFor an instant comprehends,

Now all things travel to a voice''"
''aWe see, as from a shore;
Let the heart speak, while yet we see,





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