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Title: The Water
Author: James Avis Bartley [
More Titles by Bartley]
The water, see it, leaps from the mountain's high brow,
Like a roll of smooth silver, and laughingly now
See, it skips, like a child, through the valley so green,
Throwing beauty and blithesomeness over the scene.
See the dew-drops of morning that glitter so bright,
Drunk up by the leaves and the flowers with delight;
See the fair delicate fays, for their heavenly feast,
In colors more lovely their light limbs have drest.
See the dark-rushing showers exultingly come
Down, down to the earth from their high, cloudy home!
How the countless drops twinkle, and dance, and rejoice,
Then creep to the ground with a tremulous voice!
Oh the water, the water, it shineth so bright!
It falls like a beautiful raining of light,
And it gladdeneth the earth, and the sky, and the sea,
'Till the world laugheth out in her fullness of glee!
See it all smileth fairest--'tis beauty above,
In Heaven and Earth 'tis but beauty and love;
With harmony dancing--a scene like a dream,
When Heaven comes down on the spirit to beam!
Oh the water! the water! man, quaff its bright flow;
It will gladden thy spirit, but give thee no woe:
As it fresh'neth the world, so its rills will impart
Health, gladness, and sweetness and joy to thy heart.
But oh, the foul demons (horrific to tell)
Have mixed a fierce poison, the wild flame of hell;
And it killeth each fairest and loveliest thing
That the earth ever knew in her bridal of Spring.
'Tis the wild stream of hell! oh it burneth the soul,
It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole;
Yet, a Vulture, it gnaweth the quivering liver,
Forever consuming, but satiate never.
Ay, it fills the wide world with the wailing and woe,
That liken the shrieking of Devils below:
And the words of the eloquent never can tell,
The abyss of this anguish, this foretaste of Hell.
Oh God of the curst! turn this fierce stream away,
In trembling, and misery, and anguish we pray;
Make the waters of Temperance flow wide o'er the Earth,
Till she shine as of yore in the smile of her birth!
[The end]
James Avis Bartley's poem: Water
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