Poems

Chapter 42: SONNET. TO A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

This collection gathers lyrical pieces that trace the day's and year's cycles, moving through sunrise, morning, noonday, sunset, moonlight and seasonal scenes. It pairs brief landscape lyrics with sonnets, songs, and occasional narrative ballads, blending vivid natural description—mountains, streams, birds, and coastal views—with meditative reflections on mortality, faith, memory, and poetic ambition. The tone alternates between pastoral celebration and sober contemplation, favoring clear sensory detail, moral sentiment, and accessible stanza forms that foreground feeling and observation over formal experimentation.

SONNET.
TO A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.

'Tis evening, and the summer has put on

Her richest dress, her way with flowers is strewed,

Beauty and music dwell in every wood,

And bower and meadow, hill and valley lone;

A gentle shower is o'er, the earth has wept

Its fragrance into freshness. In this hour,—

When in a flood of glory all is dipped,

By the soft influence of a higher power,—

My spirit leaves its prison-house, and flies

Towards the sweet haunts of thy pleasant home,

Where, lover-like, thy river [1] loves to roam;—

'Tis there I see thee with my mental eyes,

And hold communion with thee day by day,

Though now we never meet, and haply never may.

[1] The Tweed, near Kelso.