To Love (Amanda)

Sweet tyrant Love,- but hear me now!
And cure while young this pleasing smart;
Or rather aid my trembling vow,
And teach me to reveal my heart.

Tell her, whose goodness is my bane,
Whose looks have smiled my peace away,
Oh! whisper how she gives me pain,
Whilst undesigning, frank, and gay.

'Tis not for common charms I sigh,
For what the vulgar beauty call;
'Tis not a cheek, a lip, an eye,
But 'tis the soul that lights them all!

For that I drop the tender tear,
For that I make this artless moan;
Oh! sigh it, Love! into her ear,
And make the bashful lover known.

poem by James Thomson
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To Amanda - Come, Dear Amanda, Quit The Town

Come, dear Amanda, quit the town,
And to the rural hamlets fly;
Behold! the wintry storms are gone;
A gentle radiance glads the sky.
The birds awake, the flowers appear,
Earth spreads a verdant couch for thee;
'Tis joy and music all we hear,
'Tis love and beauty all we see.
Come, let us mark the gradual spring,
How peeps the bud, the blossom blows;
Till Philomel begins to sing,
And perfect May to swell the rose.
E'en so thy rising charms improve,
As life's warm season grows more bright;
And opening to the sighs of love,
Thy beauties glow with full delight.

poem by James Thomson
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Night

He cried out through the night:
"Where is the light?
Shall nevermore
Open Heaven's door?
Oh, I am left
Lonely, bereft!"
He cried out through the night:
It spread vaguely white,
With its ghost of a moon
Above the dark swoon
Of the earth lying chill,
Breathless, grave still.
He cried out through the night:
His voice in its might
Rang forth far and far,
And then like a star
Dwindled from sense
In the Immense.
He cried out through the night:
No answering light,

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poem by James Thomson
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Lilah, Alice, Hypatia

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh

Who was Lilah? I am sure
She was young and sweet and pure;
With the forehead wise men love,-
Here a lucid dawn above
Broad curved brows, and twilight there,
Under the deep dusk of hair.
And her eyes? I cannot say
Whether brown, or blue, or grey:
I have seen them brown, and blue,
And a soft green grey-the hue
Shakespeare loved (and he was wise):
'Grey as glass' were Silvia's eyes.

So to Lilah's name above
I will add two names I love,
Linking with the bracket curls
Three sweet names of three sweet girls:-
Sunday of Saint Valentine,

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poem by James Thomson
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Verses Addressed To Amanda

Ah, urged too late! from beauty's bondage free,
Why did I trust my liberty with thee?
And thou, why didst thou, with inhuman art,
If not resolved to take, seduce my heart?
Yes, yes, you said, for lovers' eyes speak true;
You must have seen how fast my passion grew:
And, when your glances chanced on me to shine,
How my fond soul ecstatic sprung to thine!
But mark me, fair one - what I now declare
Thy deep attention claims and serious care:
It is no common passion fires my breast;
I must be wretched, or I must be blessed!
My woes all other remedy deny;
Or, pitying, give me hope, or bid me die!

poem by James Thomson
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A Recusant

THE CHURCH stands there beyond the orchard-blooms:
How yearningly I gaze upon its spire!
Lifted mysterious through the twilight glooms,
Dissolving in the sunset’s golden fire,
Or dim as slender incense morn by morn
Ascending to the blue and open sky.
For ever when my heart feels most forlorn
It murmurs to me with a weary sigh,
How sweet to enter in, to kneel and pray
With all the others whom we love so well!
All disbelief and, doubt might pass away,
All peace float to us with its Sabbath bell.
Conscience replies, There is but one good rest,
Whose head is pillowed upon Truth’s pure breast.

poem by James Thomson
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Contentment

If those who live in shepherd's bower,
Press not the rich and stately bed;
The new-mown hay and breathing flower
A softer couch beneath them spread.

If those who sit at shepherd's board,
Soothe not their taste by wanton art;
They take what Nature's gifts afford,
And take it with a cheerful heart.

If those who drain the shepherd's bowl,
No high and sparkling wines can boast;
With wholesome cups they cheer the soul,
And crown them with the village toast.

If those who join in shepherd's sport,
Gay dancing on the daisied ground,
Have not the splendour of a court;
Yet love adorns the merry round.

poem by James Thomson
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Farewell to Ravelrig

*

Sweet Ravelrig, I ne'er could part
From thee, but wi' a dowie heart.
When I think on the happy days
I spent in youth about your braes,
When innocence my steps did guide,
Where murmuring streams did sweetly glide
Beside the braes well stored wi' trees,
And sweetest flow'rs that fend the bees:

And there the tuneful tribe doth sing,
While lightly flitting on the wing;
And conscious peace was ever found
Within your mansion to abound.
Sweet be thy former owner's rest,
And peace to him that's now possess't
Of all thy beauties great and small,
Lang may he live to bruik them all!

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poem by James Thomson
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Through Foulest Fogs

THROUGH foulest fogs of my own sluggish soul,
Through midnight glooms of all the wide world's guilt,
Through sulphurous cannon-clouds that surge and roll
Above the steam of blood in anger spilt;
Through all the sombre earth-oppressing piles
Of old cathedral temples which expand
Sepulchral vaults and monumental aisles,
Hopeless and freezing in the lifeful land;
I gaze and seek with ever-longing eyes
For God, the Love-Supreme, all-wise, all-good:
Alas! in vain; for over all the skies
A dark and awful shadow seems to brood,
A numbing, infinite, eternal gloom:
I tremble in the consciousness of Doom.

poem by James Thomson
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Sweet Valley, Say

Sweet valley, say, where, pensive lying,
For me, our children, England, sighing,
The best of mortals leans his head.
Ye fountains, dimpled by my sorrow,
Ye brooks that my complainings borrow,
O lead me to his lonely bed;
Or if my lover,
Deep woods, you cover,
Ah whisper where your shadows o'er him spread.

'Tis not the loss of pomp and pleasure,
Of empire or of tinsel treasure,
That drops this tear, that swells this groan:
No; from a nobler cause proceeding,
A heart with love and fondness bleeding,
I breathe my sadly pleasing moan,
With other anguish
I scorn to languish
For love will feel no sorrows but his own.

poem by James Thomson
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