To George Peabody
No Eastern tale, no annals of the past,
Of Greece or Rome, deeds such as thine relate,
Deeds kings and emperors might emulate,
That o'er thy native land new luster cast;
The land that opens all her wide domain
To the oppressed of every name and zone,
And with a spirit generous as thine own,
Pours forth the gifts her boundless stores contain;
The land that shall embalm thy memory
In love and honor, while long ages hence
The bounteous stream of thy beneficence,
Bearing along to millions yet to be
Tributes of light and love, its course shall run,
Still widening as it flows, like the broad Amazon!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sonnet to -----
Ah no! my love knows no vain jealousy:
The rose that blooms and lives but in the sun,
Asks not what other flowers he shines upon,
If he but shine on her. Enough for me,
Thus in thy light to dwell, and thus to share
The sunshine of thy smile with all things fair.
I know thou'rt vowed to Beauty, not to Love.
I would not stay thy footsteps from one shrine,
Nor would I bind thee by a sigh to mine.
For me -- I have no lingering wish to rove;
For though I worship all things fair, like thee,
Of outward grace, of soul-nobility;
Happier than thou, I find them all in one,
And I would worship at thy shrine alone!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sonnet
Oh! in that better land to which I go,
Say, shall I know thee as I know thee here;
And will thy presence dim that glorious sphere,
As it hath darkened all the earth below?
Oh! will that voice enchain my listening ear,
Whose "frozen music" stops my pulses now;
And shall I meet in that fair land of bliss
Those calm, cold eyes that chill me so in this?
Shall I bear hence e'en memory of thee?
Unheeded then will pass the Angel throngs;
I shall not hear the Seraph's burning songs,
And heaven itself will be all dark to me.
Oh give me rather that drear, hopeless faith,
That sees no morn beyond the night of death!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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Prometheus sonnet
Thou brave old Titan, that in chains didst lie,
Bound to the rock on the Caucasian hill,
Who by sublime endurance didst defy
Imperial Jove and all his shapes of ill;
As I invoke thy spirit here to-day, --
From the old Pagan world thou speak'st to me,
I hear thy voice across Time's sounding sea,
Bid me thus bear and conquer. -- I obey.
Henceforth, like thee, I will endure and wait
On life's bleak summit bound, without dismay.
Then in thine iron car roll on thy way,
Thou stern, relentless power that men call Fate,
Loose then thy bolts thou dark and threat'ning sky --
Thou vulture at my heart, feed to satiety!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Largess
Go forth in life, O friend, not seeking love;
A mendicant that with imploring eye
And outstretched hand asks of the passers-by
The alms his strong necessities may move.
For such poor love, to pity near allied,
Thy generous spirit should not stoop and wait,
A suppliant, whose prayer may be denied,
Like a spurned beggar's at a palace gate!
But thy heart's affluence lavish, uncontrolled,
The largess of thy love give full and free,
As monarchs in their progress scatter gold.
And be thy heart like the exhaustless sea,
That must its wealth of cloud and dew bestow,
Though tributary streams or ebb or flow.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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To Juliette on her wedding day
When our first parents were from Eden driven
To wander exiled in this world of care,
Hope changed to fear, and memory to despair;
But once, to their posterity 't is given
The vision of that blissful home to share:
Whene'er two wedded souls as one are bound,
Then the lost Paradise again is found;
But trifles light as air this dream dispel,
And drive the hapless mortals forth disowned,
In the cold air of common life to dwell.
To-day for thee, these dreamland gates are riven;
Enter, and in its charmèd precincts stay
Till thy sweet life at last shall pass away,
And thou shalt find it is not far to Heaven.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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Sonnet. On seeing the ivory statue of Christ
The enthusiast brooding in his cell apart
O'er the sad image of the Crucified,---
The drooping head, closed lips and piercéd side,---
A holy vision fills his raptured heart;
With heavenly power inspired, his unskilled arm
Shapes the rude block to this transcendent form.
Oh Son of God! thus, ever thus, would I
Dwell on the loveliness enshrined in Thee;
The lofty faith, the sweet humility;
The boundless love, the love that could not die.
And as the sculptor, with thy glory warm,
Gave to this chiselled ivory thy fair form,
So would my spirit, in thy thought divine,
Grow to a semblance, fair as this, of Thine.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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Sonnet. Faith
Securely cabined in the ship below,
Through darkness and through storm I cross the sea,
A pathless wilderness of waves to me:
But yet I do not fear, because I know
That he who guides the good ship o'er that waste
Sees in the stars her shining pathway traced.
Blindfold I walk this life's bewildering maze;
Up flinty steep, through frozen mountain pass,
Through thornset barren and through deep morass:
But strong in faith I tread the uneven ways,
And bare my head unshrinking to the blast,
Because my Father's arm is round me cast;
And if the way seems rough, I only clasp
The hand that leads me with a firmer grasp.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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On a picture (II)
Why bends she o'er that glittering toy
With such an earnest gaze,
As if those flashing jewels cast
Love glances in their rays?
By that high, thought-enthronéd brow --
That deep and soul-lit eye,
I know 'tis not the passing dream
Of woman's vanity.
I know that in its golden links
Some talisman is set,
And for the heart it rests upon,
'Tis Love's own amulet.
Oh, may that heart, so joyous now,
No heavier burden bear;
The beauty of that noble brow,
No deeper shadow wear.
[...] Read more
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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Ab astris
I saw the stars swept through ethereal space,
Stars, suns, and systems in infinity,---
Our earth an atom in the shoreless sea,
Where each had its appointed path and place:
And I was lost in my own nothingness.
But then I said, Dost thou not know that He
Who guides these orbs through trackless space guides thee?
No longer groveling thus, thyself abase,
For in this vast, harmonious, perfect whole,
In infinite progression moving on,
Thou hast thy place, immortal human soul,
Thy place and part not less than star and sun;
Then with this grand procession fall in line,
This rhythmic march led on by power divine.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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