Fringilla: Some Tales in Verse - Richard Doddridge Blackmore (read aloud books .TXT) 📗

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"Home! Where is home? Of old I thought
(Or felt in mystery of bliss)
That so divinely was I wrought
As not to care for that or this,
And value nought;

"But sit or saunter, rest or roam,
Regarding all things most sublimely,
As if enthroned on heaven's dome;
Away with paltry and untimely
Hankerings for Home!

"But now the weary heart is fain
For shelter in some lowly nest--
To sink upon a softer breast,
And smile away its pain,

VIII

"For me, what home, what hope is left?
What difference of good or ill?
Of all I ever loved bereft,
Disgraced, discarded, outlawed still,
For one small theft!

"I sicken of my skill and pride;
I work, without a bit of caring.
The world is waste, the world is wide;
Why make good things, with no one sharing
Them at my side?

"What matters how I dwell, or die?
Away with such a niggard life!
The Lord hath robbed me of my wife;
And life is only I.

IX

"God, who hast said it is not good
For man, thy son, to live alone;
Is everlasting solitude,
When once united bliss was known,
A livelier food?

"Can'st thou suppose it right or just,
When thine own creature so misled us,
In virtue of our simple trust,
To torture us like this, and tread us
Back into dust?

"Oh, fool I am. Oh, rebel worm!
If, when immortal, I was slain,
For daring to impugn his reign,
How shall I, thus infirm?

X

"Woe me, poor me! No humbler yet,
For all the penance on me laid!
Forgive me, Lord, if I forget
That I am but what Thou hast made,
My soul Thy debt!

"Inspire me to survey the skies,
And tremble at their golden wonder;
To learn the space that I comprise,
At once to marvel, and to ponder,
And drop mine eyes.

"And grant me?--for I do but find,
In seeking more than God hath shown,
I scorn His power and lose my own--
Grant me a lowly mind.

XI

"A lowly mind! Thou wondrous sprite,
Whose frolics make their master weep;
Anon, endowed with eagle's flight,
Anon, too impotent to creep,
Or blink aright;--

"Howe'er, thy trumpery flashes play
Among the miracles above thee,
Be taught to feel thy Maker's sway,
To labour, so that He shall love thee,
And guide thy way.

"Be led, from out the cloudy dreams
Of thy too visionary part,
To listen to the whispering heart,
And curb thine own extremes.

XII

"Then hope shall shine from heaven, and give
To fruit of hard work, sunny cheek,
And flowers of grace and love revive,
And shrivelled pasturage grow sleek,
And corn snail thrive.

"Beholding gladness, Eve and I,
Enfolding it also in each other,
May talk of heaven without a sigh;
Because our heaven in one another
Love shall supply.

"For courage, faith, and bended knees,
By stress of patience, cure distress,
And turn wild Love-in-idleness
Into the true Heartsease."

The Lord breathed on the first of men,
And strung his limbs to strength again;
He scorned a century of ill,
And girt his loins to climb the parting hill.

PART II--EVE

Meanwhile through lowland, holt, and glade,
Sad Eve her lonely travel made;
Not fierce, or proud, but well content
To own the righteous punishment;
Yet found, as gentle mourners find,
The hearts confession soothe the mind.

I

"Ye valleys, and ye waters vast,
Who answer all that look on you
With shadows of themselves, that last
As long as they, and are as true--
Where hath he past?

"Oh woods, and heights of rugged stone,
Oh weariness of sky above me,
For ever must I pine and moan,
With none to comfort, none to love me,
Alone, alone?

"Thou bird, that hoverest at heaven's gate,
Or cleavest limpid lines of air,
Return--for thou hast one to care--
Return to thy dear mate.

II

"For trie, no joy of earth or sky,
No commune with the things I see,
But dreary converse of the eye
With worlds too grand to look at me--
No smile, no sigh!

"In vain I fall Upon my knees,
In vain I weep and sob for ever;
All other miseries have ease,
All other prayers have ruth--but never
Any for these.

"Are we endowed with heavenly breath,
And God's own form, that we should win
A proud priority of sin,
And teach creation death?

III

"Not, that is too profound for me,
Too lofty for a fallen thing.
More keenly do I feel than see;
Far liefer would I, than take wing,
Beneath it be.

"The night--the dark--will soon be here,
The gloom that doth my heart appal so I
How can I tell what may be near?
My faith is in the Lord--but also
He hath made fear.

"I quail, I cower, I strive to flee;
Though oft I watched without affright,
The stern magnificence of night,
When Adam was with me

IV

"My husband! Ah, I thought sometime
That I could do without him well,
Communing with the heaven at prime,
And in my womanhood could dwell
Calm and sublime.

"Declining, with a playful strife,
All thoughts below my own transcendence,
All common-sense of earth and life,
And counting it a poor dependence
To be his wife,

"But now I know, by trouble's test,
How little my poor strength can bear,