Gerald Massey

Gerald Massey Poems

There lives a voice within me, a guest-angel of my heart,
And its sweet lispings win me, till the tears a-trembling start;
Up evermore it springeth, like some magic melody,
...

AT the Last Day while all the rest
Are soundly sleeping underground,
He will be up clean-shaved and dressed
An hour before the Trumpets sound.
...

FATHER in Heaven, we seek Thy face
When darkness is our dwelling-place.
Our foolish hearts, that daily roam,
...

THERE is no gleam of glory gone,
For those who read in Nature's Book;
No lack of triumph in their look
Who stand in Her Eternal Dawn.
...

THE stream of Life that brimmed its banks of old,
We drain to gather Wisdom's grains of gold;
And often as we count the riches o'er,
...

SURROUNDED by unnumbered Foes,
Against my soul the battle goes!
Yet though I weary, sore-distressed,
I know that I shall reach my Rest:
...

YOU perfect, pure, original,
Writ in a tongue unknown to all;
Translated, in some other sphere,
You may be read; but will not here.
...

THEY pity Pegasus because
The Matrimonial Car he draws
Along the ruts of life:
And hot and dusty is the road,
...

THE Delian diver wrecked her life to grasp
A pearl she saw by Visionary gleams,
And died with empty hand that could not clasp
...

WHO would not wish the Dead were near,
If we can dry the mourners' tear?
Who would not pray the Dead may sleep,
...

WHEN the merry spring-tide
Floods all the land;
Nature hath a Mother's heart,
Gives with open hand;
...

WE read your Letters! no word lost;
All, all is rememberèd;
And often when there comes no Post,
Once more are the old ones read.
...

WE are not only where we seem
To live, but in some Astral gleam
Dwell also in a world of dream!
...

YOUR tiny picture makes me yearn;
We are so far apart!
My Darling, I can only turn
And kiss you in my heart.
...

A FEW more Meetings on the Deep,
And partings on the shore;
And then in Heaven at last we keep
Our tryst for evermore.
...

No green age, beautiful to see,
Hath Poor Old Gran!
No ripe life mellowed goldenly
Hath Poor Old Gran!
...

A MERRY sound of clapping hands,
A call to see the sight;
And lo! the first soft snow-flakes fall,
So exquisitely virginal:
...

YOU have your Angel in the House! but look
On this, her likeness, mirrored in a book,
If but to learn how shadowy the Ideal
...

DARK, dark the night, and tearfully I grope,
Lost in the Shadows, feeling for the way,
But cannot find it. Here's no help, no hope,
...

'So many are your foes, their arrows shroud
The very Sun with an eclipsing cloud.'
'We'll fight them in the dark then! and the horde
...

Gerald Massey Biography

Gerald Massey (29 May 1828 - 29 October 1907) was an English poet and self-styled Egyptologist. He was born near Tring, Hertfordshire in England. Massey's parents were poor. When little more than a child, he was made to work hard in a silk factory, which he afterward deserted for the equally laborious occupation of straw plaiting. These early years were rendered gloomy by much distress and deprivation, against which the young man strove with increasing spirit and virility, educating himself in his spare time, and gradually cultivating his innate taste for literary work. "During the later years of his life, (from about 1870 onwards) Massey became interested increasingly in Egyptology and the similarities that exist between ancient Egyptian mythology and the Gospel stories. He studied the extensive Egyptian records housed in the British Museum, eventually teaching himself to decipher the hieroglyphics." Massey's first public appearance as a writer was in connection with a journal called the Spirit of Freedom, of which he became editor, and he was only twenty-two when he published his first volume of poems, Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love (1850). These he followed in rapid succession with The Ballad of Babe Christabel (1854), War Waits (1855), Havelock's March (1860), and A Tale of Eternity (1869). Many years afterward in 1889, Massey collected the best of the contents of these volumes, with additions, into a two-volume edition of his poems called My Lyrical Life. He also published works dealing with Spiritualism, the study of Shakespeare's sonnets (1872 and 1890), and theological speculation. Massey's poetry has a certain rough and vigorous element of sincerity and strength which easily accounts for its popularity at the time of its production. He treated the theme of Sir Richard Grenville before Tennyson thought of using it, with much force and vitality. Indeed, Tennyson's own praise of Massey's work is still its best eulogy, for the Laureate found in him a poet of fine lyrical impulse, and of a rich half-Oriental imagination. The inspiration of his poetry is essentially British; he was a patriot to the core. In regards to Egyptology, Massey first published The Book of the Beginnings, followed by The Natural Genesis. His most prolific work is Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, published shortly before his death. His work, which draws comparisons between the Judeo-Christian religion and the Egyptian religion, is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology and is not mentioned in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt or any other work of modern Egyptology.)

The Best Poem Of Gerald Massey

This World Is Full Of Beauty

There lives a voice within me, a guest-angel of my heart,
And its sweet lispings win me, till the tears a-trembling start;
Up evermore it springeth, like some magic melody,
And evermore it singeth this sweet song of songs to me-
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Night's starry tenderness dower with glory evermore,
Morn's budding, bright, melodious hour comes sweetly as of yore;
But there be million hearts accursed, where no sweet sunbursts shine,
And there be million hearts athirst for Love's immortal wine.
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

If faith, and hope, and kindness pass'd, as coin, 'twixt heart and heart;
How, thro' the eye's tear-blindness, should the sudden soul upstart!
The dreary, dim, and desolate, should wear a sunny bloom,
And Love should spring from buried Hate, like flowers o'er Winter's tomb.
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Were truth our uttered language, Angels might talk with men,
And God-illumined earth should see the golden Age again;
The burden'd heart should soar in mirth like Morn's young prophet-lark,
And Misery's last tear wept on earth, quench Hell's last cunning spark.
For this world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Lo! plenty ripens round us, yet awakes the cry for bread,
The millions still are toiling, crushed, and clad in rags, unfed!
While sunny hills and valleys richly blush with fruit and grain,
But the paupers in the palace rob their toiling fellow-men.
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Dear God! what hosts are trampled 'mid this killing crush for gold!
What noble hearts are sapp'd of love! what spirits lose life's hold!
Yet a merry world it might be, opulent for all, and aye,
With its lands that ask for labor, and its wealth that wastes away.
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

The leaf-tongues of the forest, and the flow'r-lips of the sod-
The happy Birds that hymn their raptures in the ear of God-
The summer wind that bringeth music over land and sea,
Have each a voice that singeth this sweet song of songs to me-
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

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