To the unknown builder of the Cathedral of Cologne
Unknown great Master! whose creative thought
Is here inscribed, though from Fame's shining scroll
Thy name is lost, this wondrous dome is fraught
With the expression of thy reverent soul.
Immortal, in each curve and line inwrought;
As in the vast, harmonious, perfect whole:
We see buttress, tower, and pinnacle that reach
In forests of great columns, towering high,
With deep grooved arches interlacing each,
Lift their bold outlines dark against the sky.
It rises like a vision in mid-air, indeed
A temple meet for a divine abode;
The embodied symbol of man's highest creed;
A symphony in stone; a thought of God.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sonnet. The sun and stream
As some dark stream within a cavern's breast,
Flows murmuring, moaning for the distant sun,
So ere I met thee, murmuring its unrest,
Did my life's current coldly, darkly run.
And as that stream, beneath the sun's full gaze,
Its separate course and life no more maintains,
But now absorbed, transfused far o'er the plains,
It floats, etherealized in those warm rays;
So in the sunlight of thy fervid love,
My heart, so long to earth's dark channels given,
Now soars, all pain, all doubt, all ill above,
And breathes the ether of the upper heaven:
So thy high spirit holds and governs mine;
So is my life, my being, lost in thine!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sonnet. Tarpeia
"Give me the bracelets that your warriors wear,"
The Roman traitress to the Sabine cried,
"Give me the toys, and I will be your guide,
And to your host the city's gates unbar."
Then to the walls each eager warrior rushed,
And on the base Tarpeia as he passed,
Each from his arm the massive circlet cast,
Till her slight form beneath the weight was crushed.
Thus are our idle wishes. Thus we sigh
For some imagined good yet unattained; --
For wealth, or fame, or love, and which once gained
May like a curse o'er all our future lie.
Thus in our blindness do we ask of fate,
The gifts that once bestowed may crush us with their weight.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Peter Cooper
The Pyramids of Egypt, even to-day
The wonder of the world, stupendous stand
In their material greatness, and defy
Alike relentless Time and Libyan sand.
But what great thought through those grim structures smiles?
What Aspiration reared those wondrous piles?
None,---save that kings, forgotten long ago,
Might leave their worthless dust to waste below.
This Shrine thou 'st reared to Science and to Art
A nobler Thought than Egypt dreamed contains,
And every stone speaks of a regal heart
Benignant as the Nile to desert plains,
When all the arid waste it overflows,
And the parched shores grow green, and blossom as the rose.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sonnet. The lake and star
The mountain lake, o'ershadowed by the hills,
May still gaze heavenward on the evening star,
Whose distant light its dark recesses fills,
Though boundless distance must divide them far;
Still may the lake the star's bright image bear,
Still may the star, from its blue ether dome,
Shower down its silver beams across the gloom,
And light the wave that wanders darkly there.
Star of my life! thus do I turn to thee
Amid the shadows that above me roll;
Thus from thy distant sphere thou shinest on me;
Thus does thine image float upon my soul,
Through the wide space that must our lives dissever
Far as the lake and star, ah me! forever.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Lamartine
A poet led me once, in chains of flowers,
A pilgrimage beneath the Orient skies;
And there I dreamed I walked in Eden's bowers,
He touched his harp, and when he sang of Love,
Then all my heart was to the poet given;
For his sweet tones seemed echoes from above;---
Strains that breathed less of Earth than Heaven.
But when in majesty I saw him stand
The sacred shrine of Liberty to guard;
The destinies of France within his hand,---
Then in the hero I forgot the bard.
Poet and hero, thus alternately,
Would claim my homage, each with equal art.
Allegiance I to neither could deny,
So each by turns shared my divided heart.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Accordance
He who with bold and skilful hand sweeps o'er
The organ-keys of some cathedral pile,
Flooding with music, vault, and nave, and aisle,
Though on his ear falls but a thunderous roar.
In the composer's lofty motive free,
Knows well that all that temple, vast and dim,
Thrills to its base with anthem, psalm, and hymn,
True to the changeless laws of harmony.
So he who on these clanging chords of life,
With firm, sweet touch plays the Great Master's score,
Of truth, and love, and duty, evermore,
Knows, too, that far beyond this roar and strife,
Though he may never hear, in the true time,
These notes must all accord in symphonies sublime.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Aspiration. Sonnet
THE planted seed consigned to common earth,
Disdains to moulder with the baser clay;
But rises up to meet the light of day,
Spreads all its leaves, and flowers, and tendrils forth;
And, bathed and ripened in the genial ray,
Pours out its perfume on the wandering gales,
Till in that fragrant breath its life exhales.
So this immortal germ within my breast
Would strive to pierce the dull, dark clod of sense,
With aspirations wingéd and intense;
Would so stretch upward, in its tireless quest,
To meet the Central Soul, its source, its rest;
So in the fragrance of the immortal flower,
High thoughts and noble deeds, its life it would outpour.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Indian summer
O sweet, sad autumn of the waning year,
Though in thy bowers the roses all lie dead,
And from thy woods the song of birds has fled,
And winter, stern and cold, is hovering near;
Yet from thy presence breathes a holy calm.
The fervid heats, the lightning storms, all past,
A tender light o'er earth and sky is cast,
And all thy solemn voices chant a psalm.
Oh, Indian Summer, autumn of the soul,
That no returning Spring shall visit more,
Though all thy rose-hued morning dreams are o'er,
And phantoms dread stand threat'ning at the goal,
Yet are these days dear as e'en Summer knew;
These Sibylline leaves of life, so precious, since so few.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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On a picture of Ruth
Fresh, through the mist of ages past,
Thou risest on our view,
As when from Judah's waving fields,
Thy footsteps brushed the dew.
Yet 'tis not for thy beauty's sake
We thus remember thee;
Although a chieftain's captive heart
Attests its potency; --
Not for the quiet interest
Thy simple story brings;
And not that from thy side there sprung
A line of prophet-kings.
But for that changeless, deathless love,
The true soul only knows,
That still, as darker lowers the night,
Serener, brighter glows.
[...] Read more
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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