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Title: Hours With Nature
Author: James Avis Bartley [
More Titles by Bartley]
When smiling spring, an angel fair!
Walks o'er the verdant plain,
And breathes a soft and balmy air,
From isles beyond the main:
When robins sing, and waters play,
And lambs skip o'er the mead,
And forest birds, with music gay,
Their callow offspring feed:
When May-flowers shine by every stream,
And fragrants showers come down,
While sun-rays o'er the mountains gleam,
And form a dazzling crown:--
Oh! then 'tis sweet to be with thee,
Dear Nature ever fair,
To roam thy walks of song and glee,
Thy realms, sky, earth and air.
Bright angel spring, thou seem'st divine,
With ever smiling brow:
No sin-created gloom is thine,
Nought dims thy beauty now.
Wide earth, stream, river, lake and sea,
Shine forth an angel land,
Where spirits, robed in purity,
Roam, love-linked, hand in hand.
Now June, like full-blown womanhood,
Succeeds the maiden spring,
And broods upon the solitude,
With broad and bird-like wing.
The air re-echoes forth a song
Of full and perfect bliss,
Where happy lovers roam along,
And melt into a kiss.
But Summer bursts upon the world,
With views of waving grain,
Beneath the sweating sickle hurled,
Upon the fragrant plain.
The warm, long day calls forth at length,
The storm's electric fire,
That shatters the oak's imperial strength,
And bids the shrubs expire.
The cloud rolls off--and see! what pride!
A many colored bow,
Hangs on the cloud's retreating side,
And o'er the fields below.
Then, glorious summer flies away,
From upland, slope and plain;
And Autumn, crowned with shocks of hay,
Appears in joy again.
Old, jolly Autumn! happy man!
Wild tumbling on the meads;
We'll love thee, Autumn, as we can,
Thy glory is our needs.
Thou heapest our barns with plenty--thou
Art, sure our faithful friend;
And, in the aspect of thy brow,
Lovely and useful blend.
Thy golden hues recede at length,
And seem to sigh decay,
Till, thou, despoiled of life and strength,
Art borne, a corpse, away.
Wild, bleak, and blustering Winter wild,
Assumes the icy throne;
Deep snows upon the earth are piled,
And hushed is every tone.
The trees stand bare, bleak skeletons,
Of bodies once so fair,
And dirges, dirges, woeful ones,
Resound amid the air.
Bleak, winter wild! thy dreary scenes,
Have yet one modest flower;
The daisy finds some little greens,
Whereby she builds her bower.
The daisy is a preacher wise,
Whom heavenly robes array;
Each winter lives, and sweetly tries,
A loving word to say.
"Oh! man, amid thy darkest woe,
Some humble bliss remains;--
Then, let thy murmurings cease to flow,
And hush thy doleful strains."
It is the dawn. Faint crimson streaks
The dewy, orient sky,
Like virtue's blush, on maiden cheeks,
Ah! sweet and peerless dye.
At last--the sun, an Eastern king,
Comes forth in rested pride;
And soars, with bright and burning wing,
Above the hill and tide.
Above yon Blue Ridge, towering piles,
Uptorn by Nature's throe--
He speeds, he speeds, through myriad miles,
To his meridian glow.
The birds sink down, amid the copse,
And sing a feeble song;
At last, each sound, on sudden, stops,
And Silence holds the throng.
But Evening, comes, a sober maid,
With one bright, starry eye;
And throws her mantle--star-inlaid--
Upon the silent sky.
It is night's noon. How dark, how vast,
Yon boundless vault appears;
A shadow o'er the earth is cast,
That wakes the spirit's fears
How death-like hushed! all life seems dead,
Does Nature live at all?
Ah, truest symbol! it has said,
"The hush--the gloom--the Pall!"
Day is the varying life of Man,--
Some sunshine--clouds again--
Night is his death--which erst began
When Sin began to reign.
Dark, spectral Night! I sing of thee;
For, thou art lovely, too--
And Death will wake the melody
Of him whose life was true.
To walk upon the azure sea,
It is a thing of bliss;
When skies are bright, and sails are free
And smiling wavelets kiss.
How grandly leans the ship, a queen,
Above the sparkling tide--
With joy she walks the watery scene,
A thing of fear and pride.
To scale the crown of vast Blue Ridge,
And eye the world below--
Farm--river--ravine--wiry bridge--
And soaring crane and crow--
And misty woods--and fields afar--
Neat villages and towns--
Blest herds and flocks no beast can mar,
That nibble sunny downs.
Oh! that is, sure, a pleasant thing,
And bathes the soul in joy;
And many a grief-worn man 'twould bring,
To be once more a boy.
'Tis sweet to rove, at twilight dim,
Beside an aldered stream,
To list thy lady's evening hymn,
'Neath starlight's trembling gleam.
'Tis sweet to sit within a bower,
Inwrought with flower and vine,
What time along yon mountain tower,
The shades of eve decline.
'Tis sweet to hear the nightingale,
O'erflow the forest shade,
With harmony which might avail,
To win a Dis-stole maid.
'Twere sweet to cleave the snowy foam,
With ship and spirit free,
Where tropic spices ever roam,
The Caribbean sea.
'Twere sweet to sail by Yemen's shore,
And touch that golden strand,
Where Indus' river wanders o'er,
Its glittering, golden sand.
Oh! Nature! thou art far above,
The painter's, Poet's pride--
Thou art the glorious Child of Love--
Adorned a heavenly bride.
[The end]
James Avis Bartley's poem: Hours With Nature
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