Charles Harpur Poems

One summer morn, out of the sea-waves wild,
A speck-like Cloud, the season’s fated child,
Came softly floating up the boundless sky,
And o’er the sun-parched hills all brown and dry.
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Thought-weary and sad, I reclined by a fountain
At the head of a white-cedar-shaded ravine,
And the breeze that fell over the high glooming mountain
Sang a lullaby low as I gazed o’er the scene.
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Trust and treachery, wisdom, folly,
Madness, mirth and melancholy,
Love and hatred, thrift and pillage,
All are housed in every village.
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There's a regret that from my bosom aye
Wrings forth a dirgy sweetness, like a rain
Of deathward love; that ever in my brain
Uttereth such tones as in some foregone way
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Spirit of Dreams! When many a toilsome height
Shut paradise from exiled Adam’s sight,
Two wedded powers were given thenceforth to stray
On either hand, companions of his way;
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When a simple English maiden,
Nested warm in Wilmicote,
Sang forth like a lark uprising
Heavenward with its morning note,
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Words are deeds. The words we hear
May revolutionize or rear
A mighty state. The words we read
May be a spiritual deed
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Fit winding-sheet for thee
Was the upheaving eternal sea,
Fit dirge the tempest’s slave-alarming roll
For yokeless as the waves alway
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WE’LL PLANT a Tree of Liberty
In the centre of the land,
And round it ranged as guardians be,
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TRUST and Treachery, Wisdom, Folly,
Madness, Mirth and Melancholy,
Love and Hatred, Thrift and Pillage,
All are housed in one small village.
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