The wind! the wind plays o’er the prison-bar,
Still fresh from kissing the green forest-leaves;
Rending the wheat-fields in the country far;
Shaking the woodbine round the cottage-eaves;
Wreathing the buds and bells
In sweet, secluded dells;
Ruffling the milky down upon the breast
Of soft swans sitting on their humid nest;
And by the large pond’s silvery-dappled edge
Brushing the cool drops from the rustling sedge.
And as I list the sound
His broad wings make the prison-roofs around,
At times I close my eyes,
And visions of the beautiful arise:
The heathery highland stained with purpling line,
And water-lilies dripping rich with dew,
And evening sunbeams on white cottage-walls,
And cawing rookeries round ancestral halls,
And rural mills by sprightly river-falls.
And with the music blent,
Full many a sound and scent
Come pouring, like a dream,
From hill, and plain, and stream.
And whence his viewless feet,
Leaving here and there
The great red poppy rocking in the air,
Have prest the thymy stubble, odours sweet
In fairy frailness past the grating fleet.
And many feathery-footed thoughts arise,
Of sorrows past, and past prosperities,
And scenes where Recollection’s treasury lies:
The old Elm-avenue that to the door
On summer-evenings brought the smiling poor,
While round the stately trees that lined the way
Their merry children ran in rose-enkindling play:
For in that land, where half my youth was spent,
The rich had not yet crushed their young content.
Ha! faithless Fancy! there I wake again!
The narrow walls oppress my swelling brain,
Big with great thoughts, that seek a vent in vain,
Still let me dream! for, while the world’s half seeming,
And men are false, and villanies are scheming,
There lives a true philosophy in dreaming.
Methinks, by some clear day’s departing light
I mount that old tradition-haunted height
And feel the cool breeze sweeping up from far,
Pure, as if wafted from you evening star.
One pine or two, with tingling branches spread,
Make soft, Eolian music over head;
Before me, tillage rich outruns the eyes,
‘Till field and cottage melt in vague surmise;
Behind, dark pinewoods loom like mysteries;
And, far below, the grey hall wrapped in shade;
And clustering hamlet in the homely glade;
And bridge, and stream, and island, and the mill
And church low-nestling by the nether hill.
And upward soar the bleat, and low, and bay,
And village-cry, and blythe young roundelay:-
And hark! the clock!
The tell-tale musical monotony
Whose constant voice men constantly forget,-
And all the sweet farewells of dying day,
By distance, magical musician! set
To one enchanting key.
With quickening pace the weary labourer hies
From loitering gossip where the cross paths met;
The plodding shepherd drives his tinkling flock;
Strange echoes murmur round the untrodden rock;
White sheeted mists along the lowland rise;
The patient angler leaves the cloudy stream;
The scattered cottage-panes begin to gleam;
Down yon long hill, on slow foot nag, but sure,
Winds the grey pastor homeward to his cure;
And where yon distant horn makes pleasant din,
The heavy laden coach comes rattling in.
And so I mark the sleepy world grow dim,
Till twilight makes the dull horizon swim;
Then downward thread the pinewood’s labyrinth
green,
Till the grey postern of the house is seen;
But shun the brook, for, by its reedy brink,
The shy deer from the covert come to drink;
And, since to us they leave the garish light,
‘Twere pity, sure! to scare their genial night.
And now, to give the eve a fitting crown,
Quaff one long draft of crystal rhenish down-
And so, to bed-
While moonlight hangs around the silent room
Its shadowy arras from etherial loom,
With tracery fancy-led;
And sighing winds the boughs quick shadow send
Across the window’s white, moon-marbled bend;
Or, thro’ the dappled sky,
The pausing clouds their silken banners furl
As o’er their path some hushing meteor streams;
Then let Imagination’s alchemy
The fine material of its memories blend,
In the rich crucible of midnight dreams,
To some transparent palace of pure pearl-
And wake next morn a Poet!
Poesy!
Thro’ thee I’ve felt my failing heart again,
And life re-thrilling thro’ each flaccid vein,
And saved an hour from sleep, and snatched an
hour from pain!
And borne upon thy wings as on a wind,
Soared up-up to the pinnacles of thought!
How care, pain, prison, dwindled far behind!
Oh! little cares! Oh! visions glory-fraught!
There is-there is an empire in the mind!
(Ernest Jones)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Youth Poems, Dreams Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Beauty Poems, Pain PoemsBased on Keywords: heathery, tell-tale, tracery, flaccid, thymy, etherial, postern, rhenish, outruns, wheat-fields, pinewood