-o=0=o-

THE LONG WHITE SEAM
 Jean Ingelow 1820–97

As I came round the harbour buoy,   
  The lights began to gleam,   
No wave the land-locked water stirred,   
  The crags were white as cream;   
And I marked my love by candle-light          
  Sewing her long white seam.   
    It’s aye sewing ashore, my dear,   
      Watch and steer at sea,   
    It’s reef and furl, and haul the line,   
      Set sail and think of thee.           

I climbed to reach her cottage door;   
  O sweetly my love sings!   
Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth,   
  My soul to meet it springs   
As the shining water leaped of old,           
  When stirred by angel wings.    

Aye longing to list anew,   
      Awake and in my dream,   
    But never a song she sang like this,   
      Sewing her long white seam.           

Fair fall the lights, the harbour lights,   
  That brought me in to thee,   
And peace drop down on that low roof   
  For the sight that I did see,   
And the voice, my dear, that rang so clear           
  All for the love of me.   
    For O, for O, with brows bent low   
      By the candle’s flickering gleam,   
    Her wedding gown it was she wrought,   
      Sewing the long white seam.           

-o=0=o-

MORNING HAS BROKEN
Eleanor Farjeon 1881-1965

Morning has broken
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
Fresh from the Word!

Sweet the rain's new fall
Sunlit from heaven,
Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
Where his feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning
Born of the one light
Eden saw play!
Praise with elation,
Praise every morning,
God's re-creation
Of the new day!

-o=0=o-

A TRAGEDY
Edith Nesbit 1858-1924

Among his books he sits all day   
  To think and read and write;   
He does not smell the new-mown hay   
  The roses red and white.   

I walk among them all alone,           
  His silly stupid wife;   
The world seems tasteless, dead and done -   
  An empty thing is life.   

At night his window casts a square   
  Of light upon the lawn;           
I sometimes walk and watch it there   
  Until the chill of dawn.   

I have no brain to understand   
  The books he loves to read;   
I only have a heart and hand           
  He does not seem to need.   

He calls me “Child” - lays on my hair   
  Thin fingers, cold and mild;   
Oh! God of Love, who answers prayer,   
  I wish I were a child!           

And no one sees and no one knows   
  (He least would know or see)   
That ere love gathers next year’s rose   
  Death will have gathered me;   

And on my grave will bindweed pink           
  And round-faced daisies grow;   
He still will read and write and think,   
  And never, never know!   

-o=0=o-

There was a girl in our town,
Silk an’ satin was her gown,
Silk an’ satin, gold an’ velvet,
Guess her name, three times I’ve telled it.
Anon pub.1842

-o=0=o-

More poems on Thursday

beginning today 

AMERICAN ART OF THE 19TH CENTURY

http://americanartofthe19thcent.blogspot.com