Menella Bute Smedley
Menella Bute Smedley Poems
The wind bloweth wildly; she stands on the shore;
She shudders to hear it, and will evermore.
The rush of the waves, as they rose and they fell,
...
Down by the pier, when the sweet morn is blowing,
Slips from her moorings the fisher's light bark,
Sends up her ringing sails while she is going,
...
A wind came out of the Moon's clear heart,
Straight and soft in my face it blew;
It was not cold, but it made me start,
...
Comfort me, O my God!
Mine only hope Thou art!
The strokes of Thine afflicting rod
Fall heavy on my heart.
...
I'll tell you a tale of a knight, my boy,
The bravest that ever was known;
A lion he was in the fight, my boy,
A lamb when the battle was done.
...
Oh, listen, ye dames and ye lordlings all;
For never before or since
Was there known so stately a festival
...
Two children sat in the twilight,
Murmuring soft and low;
Said one, “I'll be a sailor-lad,
With my boat ahoy! yo ho!
...
She is sleeping on the grass,
Where her daily footsteps pass;
All her errands left undone
At the bidding of the sun;
...
In the realm of sunny Palestine,
Realm of the rose, the palm, the vine,
...
There was a little maiden,
She was not six years old;
Blue were her eyes as summer skies,
Her hair like burnish'd gold;
...
Two children are lost in a wood,
What can they do? what can they do?
They have not a morsel of food,
...
The moon is in the sky, and the stars are shining too,
The summer-night is calm, and the sea is very blue;
...
Out of a tomb the world's hope went of old,
While angels shone around, Force shrank away,
And weeping Love, eternally consoled,
...
In the hand—fluttering fearfully—
Lonely and helpless,—poor little thing!
In the bush—peeping out cheerfully,
...
Forget-me-nots grow by the stream,
Their blue eyes look up to the skies;
I think I have seen in a dream
As blue and as beautiful eyes!
...
Out of the Past there has come a Face;
Wherefore I do not know;
I did not call it from its place,
I cannot make it go;
...
She placed the pitcher on her head,
With idle steps the way she took
Across the pleasant field that led
Down to the happy brook.
...
It was an April morning
When my true love went out;
The wind had never a warning;
...
Menella Bute Smedley Biography
Menella Bute Smedley (1819-1877) was a novelist and poet. A relative of Lewis Carroll, Smedley wrote some minor novels and books of poems, including the anonymous, The Story of Queen Isabel, and Other Verses, 1863. She translated the old German ballad "The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains" into English in 1846. Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Times Literary Supplement (1 March 1957), and later in The Lewis Carroll Handbook (1962), suggests that Carroll’s Jabberwockey may have been inspired by this work. She died at her home at Regent's Park, London on 25 May 1877 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.)
The Best Poem Of Menella Bute Smedley
The Fisherman's Wife
The wind bloweth wildly; she stands on the shore;
She shudders to hear it, and will evermore.
The rush of the waves, as they rose and they fell,
Evermore to her fancy will sound like a knell!
“When, mother, dear mother, will father return?
His supper is ready,—the sticks brightly burn;
His chair is beside them, with dry shoes and coat,
I'm longing to kiss him,—Oh, where is the boat?
“Why does he not come with his fish on his arm?
He must want his supper,—he cannot be warm;
I'll stroke his cold cheek, with his wet hair I'll play,
I want so to kiss him,—Oh, why does he stay?”
Unheeding the voice of that prattler, she stood
To watch the wild war of the tempest and flood;
One little black speck in the distance doth float,
'Tis her world—'tis her life—'tis her fisherman's boat!
Her poor heart beats madly 'twixt hope and despair,
She watches his boat with a wild, glassy stare;
Ah! 'tis hid beneath torrents of silvery spray,
! 'tis buried mid chasms that yawn for their prey.
Over mountains of horrible waves it is tost,
It is far—it is near—it is safe—it is lost!
The proud waves of ocean unheeding rush on,
But, alas! for the little black speck—it is gone!
Oh! weep for the fisherman's boat, but weep more
For the desolate woman who stands on the shore!
She flies to her home with a shrill cry of pain,
To that home where her loved one returns not again.
All night she sits speechless, her child weeping near,
But no sob shakes her bosom,—her eye feels no tear;
In heartbroken, motionless, stupid despair,
She sits gazing on,—at his coat and his chair.
Hark! a click of the latch,—a hand opens the door,
'Tis a step—her heart leaps—'tis his step on the floor;
He stands there before her all dripping and wet,
But his smile and his kiss have warm life in them yet.
He is here, he is safe, though his boat is a wreck;
He sinks in his chair—while her arms clasp his neck,
And a sweet little voice in his ear whispers this,
“Do kiss me, dear father—I long for a kiss!”
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