Textarchiv - Philip Henry Savage

When I look on Ossipee

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

When I look on Ossipee
Not the hill alone I see;
Not the hill I see to-day
Fair and large and distant gray,
But a mountain richly bright,
Shining with eternal light.
Fashioned in a fearful past,
Born to be while life shall last,
Yet I fear thee not, but know
Thou shalt ever with me go.
I shall see thee, I shall find
The vision ever in the mind,
Given to me one happy hour
And received by me in power;
I shall never know the day
When thy touch has passed away;
For thy spirit, Ossipee,
Has become a part of me.

Philip Henry Savage

1900

Even in the city, I

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

Even in the city, I
Am ever conscious of the sky;
A portion of its frame no less
Than in the open wilderness.
The stars are in my heart by night;
I sing beneath the opening light,
As envious of the bird; I live
Upon the pavement, yet I give
My soul to every growing tree
That in the narrow ways I see.
My heart is in the blade of grass
Within the courtyard where I pass;
And the small, half-discovered cloud
Compels me till I cry aloud.
I am the wind that beats the walls
And wanders trembling till it falls;
The snow, the summer rain am I,
In close communion with the sky.

Philip Henry Savage

1900

'T is grace to sing to nature, and to pray

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

'T is grace to sing to nature, and to pray
The God of nature, out of His large heart,
To grant us knowledge of His human way;
This is the whole of nature and of art.

Philip Henry Savage

1900

What know I of the fields of fall

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

What know I of the fields of fall,
The autumn days beyond the town?
I do not hear the harvest-call,
I do not see the pastures brown;
The upland sloping to the down,
With corn-shocks leaning on the wall;
And golden ground-fruit shining through it all.
They tell me of the violet
Upon the hill, bare at the crest;
Of the autumnal primrose set
Deep where the banks protect it best;
Of summer fallow fields now drest
In green; of meadows deep and wet;
Ah! I have seen and I shall not forget!
Where stubble-fields give way to fern
In meadows where the water lies,
I 've seen the sharp-flamed sumac burn
And flash its fires before my eyes.
Faint pictures of the river rise
With blowing mist beyond the turn;
Of lean November forests bare and stern.
I once have seen; and all the kind
Stood round me in that happy year;
In one bright impulse of the mind
I was the centre of the sphere;
The spring and summer centred here
On autumn; winter stood behind
And beckoned, whispering in the smoky wind.

Philip Henry Savage

1900

Upon a pasture hill a pine-tree stands

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

Upon a pasture hill a pine-tree stands
And in the air holds up its slender hands;
A double sheep-track turns beneath the tree,
Dips to the firs, and seeks the meadow lands.
The sun is setting; slowly, one by one,
Faint breaths of wind along the branches run;
The quiet of the hills is on the air
And on the earth beneath a quiet sun.
In contrast with the sky a gray stone wall
Is black beneath the orange light; and all
The earth is black; never so black the earth
As underneath a sunset sky in fall.
The pine-tree's plumy branches make a net
And hold the light of heaven; and nearer yet,
Cold in the unfeatured blackness of the ground,
Up-springs a ray from some hid rivulet,
Deep in the pasture hummocks at my feet;
I hear its icy ripple, low and sweet;
No other sound; but in the air, unheard,
I hear the pulse of winter coldly beat.

Philip Henry Savage

1900

To Gertrude Savage

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

A winding water onward flows,
And whither, only ocean knows;
Happy the crystal source that lies
Reflecting in its heart the skies.

Philip Henry Savage

1900

Apology

mrbot — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 22:13:55 +0000

Be more concrete, immediate to man!
So did he counsel me, the sage; and I,
Taking for naught the gentle guidances
Of nature, who in all my life before
Had lived unconscious, leaving much to her,
I cast her out; so I forgot the sky
And turned my eyes into the heart of man.
But poetry is a swift, unconscious growth,
Springs native where it may, and ever lives
The child of impulse unaware and wild;
And passion many times must rise and fall
And much of life be lived before the word
Spring up to utterance and demand a birth.
So was I barren many days and so
I doubted him, the sage and moralist;
Therefore at last I claimed again the days
When I was not so much and nature more,
When beauty rose, if beauty it were, and clothed
A happy impulse or a strong desire
In forms and colors native to the time.

Philip Henry Savage

1900