BEAUTIFUL WORLD
by: John Stuart Blackie
(1809-1895)
- hough bigots condemn thee,
- My tongue finds no words
- For the graces that gem thee!
- Beaming with sunny light,
- Bountiful ever,
- Streaming with gay delight,
- Full as a river!
- Bright world! brave world!
- Let cavillers blame thee!
- I bless thee, and bend
- To the God who did frame thee!
- Beautiful world!
- Bursting around me,
- Manifold, million-hued
- Wonders confound me!
- From earth, sea, and starry sky,
- Meadow and mountain,
- Eagerly gushes
- Life's magical fountain.
- Bright world! brave world!
- Though witlings may blame thee,
- Wonderful excellence
- Only could frame thee!
- The bird in the greenwood
- His sweet hymn is trolling,
- The fish in blue ocean
- Is spouting and rolling!
- Light things on airy wing
- Wild dances weaving,
- Clods with new life in spring
- Swelling and heaving!
- Thou quick-teeming world,
- Though scoffers may blame thee,
- I wonder, and worship
- The God who could frame thee!
- Beautiful world!
- What poesy measures
- Thy strong-flooding passions,
- Thy light-trooping pleasures?
- Mustering, marshalling,
- Striving and straining,
- Conquering, triumphing,
- Ruling and reigning!
- Thou bright-armied world!
- So strong, who can tame thee?
- Wonderful power of God
- Only could frame thee!
- Beautiful world!
- While godlike I deem thee,
- No cold wit shall move me
- With bile to blaspheme thee!
- I have lived in thy light,
- And, when Fate ends my story,
- May I leave on death's cloud
- The bright trail of life's glory!
- Wondrous old world!
- No ages shall shame thee!
- Ever bright with new light
- From the God who did frame thee!
"Beautiful World" is reprinted from The Selected Poems of John Stuart Blackie. Ed. Archibald Stodart Walker. London: John Macqueen, 1896. |
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