Reuben, and Other Poems (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1903 Excerpt: ... REUBEN Beh1nd a bleak unshelter'd promontory--Seventy fathom of white chalk plunged down Sheer to deep sea, an edge to open space: Where, at her extreme bourne and outlook, Earth Stands up, and with a bared and dauntless brow Superbly fronts far ocean, shoreless air: --There lies a little hollow. North, and east, And westward (save where one blue-opening vale Leads inland to the village and is lined With hanging firwoods dark), treeless and wan, Untenanted, unplough'd, as mid-sea blank, Spreads far away the everlasting down: A lonely tableland, whose pastures huge, Gradually undulating, never crown'd By soaring peak, nor falling to deep dales, With sober, tawny, equable long lines, Uninterrupted sweep the enormous sky: A voiceless lifted world of roomy peace, Whose simple amplitude and pure expanse Fill the held void and virgin austere air, And overwhelm the silenced mind of man, With an almighty sense of sovereign space, Giant, indifferent, dumb--a keen cold breath Of pungent liberty and loneliness Untouch'd..f But in the hollow there are trees; Sycamores, from whose dim and misty boughs On February dawns the wild-voiced thrush Exults, and 'mid whose rosy buds, in May, Some o'er-sea nightingale betwixt the brine Alighting, and the waiting woodland green, In this first gage of Home grateful may linger One night, and with long shafts of passion thrill The wistful reaches of the far blue dusk. And 'neath the trees, 'mid all that barren waste Vividly green and various, grew trim grass Once, and bright hardy flowers--marigolds, Wallflower, larkspur, snapdragon and, ranged In rows on either side the red-brick path That parted the broad beds of kitchen herbs, Gooseberries and currants, all a homely wealth Of verdure: with one wide old apple-tree, That, for two peo...