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Simms's Poems: Areytos or Songs and Ballads of the South with Other Poems
>>
Sonnet.—Delphi
>> Page 407
Page 407
Poetry | Russell & Jones | 1860
Transcription
AREYTOS. 407
SONNET. DELPHI.
VOICELESS ! No more the sacred oracle
Declares the will of fate ! The iron tongue
Grew silent, when it could not speak her own,
And, with Parnassus, in dumb sympathy,
Cover'd her head with weeds! But these have wrung
A voice from out the silence which must spell
The children of the ages�and the Unknown,
Redressing the great Past, shall gather nigh
A stranger, yet a worshipper�and tell
How fresh the echoes still, that once among
These gray rocks, rose to thunders�how the tone
That lost itself in these proud solitudes,
Took wing, and found new temples where it broods,
A God in exile, true, but not without a throne.
SONNET. THESE ARE GOD'S.
THESE are God's blessed ministers, methinks,
These breezes whispering to the heart subdued,
So winningly, that still the sad ear drinks
Their messages of mercy ; and the mood
Grows chaste and unresentful�while the blight
Passes from off the spirit that, but late,
Gloom'd with the gloomy progress of the night,
And spoke defiance to the will of fate.
Comfort they bring with the submissive thought
That teaches Sorrow still is the best friend,
And moves to bless the chastener, that has brought
The heart to tremble and the knees to bend
Counselling the better hope, that, born of fears,
Is nursed in trembling and baptized in tears.
