Sydney Dobell

Here's a great poem to try, especially in summer. It's "Home, Wounded" by the English Sydney Dobell [1824-1874]. Read it all here. It has a spare beauty and a great sense of the medieval and gorgeous without the cluttered language of Shelley's ilk. In a sense it's almost like what Tolkien was going for in the more poetic parts of his work. It's quite lovely, and even the very young could appreciate it.

Here's an excerpt:

And find him singing on the self-same bough
(I know it even now)
Where, since the flit of bat,
In ceaseless voice he sat,
Trying the spring night over, like a tune,
Beneath the vernal moon;
And while I listed long,
Day rose, and still he sang,
And all his stanchless song,
As something falling unaware,
Fell out of the tall trees he sang among,
Fell ringing down the ringing morn, and rang,—
Rang like a golden jewel down a golden stair.

·         ·        ·        ·        ·        ·

My soul lies out like a basking hound,—
A hound that dreams and dozes;
Along my life my length I lay,
I fill to-morrow and yesterday,
I am warm with the suns that have long since set,
I am warm with the summers that are not yet,
And like one who dreams and dozes
Softly afloat on a sunny sea,
Two worlds are whispering over me,
And there blows a wind of roses
From the backward shore to the shore before,

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