Poems by Lydia Sigourney

The Coral Insect

Toil on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,
Who build on the tossing and treacherous main.
Toil on, for the wisdom of man ye mock
With your sand-based structures and domes of rock;
Your columns the fathomless fountains rave,
And your arches spring up through the crested wave.
Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear
A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.
Ye bind the deep with your secret zone;
The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone.
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavements spring
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king,
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled,
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold,
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.
But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield.
There are serpents to coil ere the flowers are up,
There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup,
There are foes that watch for his cradle-breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white;
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright,
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold,
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed 'mid their halls of glee;
Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea with the thronging dead?
Ye build! ye build! But ye enter not in
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin;
From the land of promise, ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weakened eye.
As the cloud-crowned pyramids' founders sleep
Noteless and lost in oblivion deep,
Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.

The Deep

I fain would be thy pupil, mighty Deep!
Yet speak thou gently to me, for I fear
Thy liquid terror, and I would not learn
The lesson that doth make the mariner
So deadly pale. My mother Earth doth teach
An easy lore. She likes to speak of man.
Her levell'd mountains and her cultured vales,
Town, tower, and temple, and triumphal arch,
All speak of man, and moulder while they speak.
But of whose architecture and design
Tell thine eternal fountains, when they rise
To combat with the clouds, or when they fall?
Of whose strong culture speak thy sunless plants,
And groves and gardens, which no mortal eye
Hath seen and lived? What sculptor's art hath wrought
Those coral monuments and tombs of pearl,
Where sleeps the sea-boy, mid a pomp that earth
Denies her buried kings? Whose science stretch'd
The simplest line to curb thy monstrous tide,
And, writing, "Hither,to" upon the sand,
Bade thy mad surge respect it? From whose loom
Comes forth thy drapery, that ne'er waxeth oid?
Who hath thy keys, thou deep? Who taketh note
Of all thy wealth? Who numbereth the host
That make their bed with thee? What eye cloth scan
Thy secret annal, from creation lock'd
Fast in those dark, illimitable cells,
Which he who visited hath ne'er return'd
To commune with the living? One reply!
Do all thine echoing depths and tossing waves
Make but one answer? of that One Dread Name
Which he who deepest graves within his heart
Is wisest, though the world may call him fool?
Therefore I come, a listener to thy voice,
And bow me at thy feet, and touch my lip
To thy cool billow, if perchance my soul,
That fleeting wanderer on these shores of time,
May, by thy voice instructed, learn of God.

Autumn

Tree! why hast thou doffed thy mantle of green
For the gorgeous grab of an Indian queen?
With the timbered brown, and the crimson stain,
And the yellow fringe on its broidered train?
And the autumn gale through its branches sighed
Of a long arrear, for the transient pride.

Stream! why is thy rushing step delayed?
Thy tuneful talk to the pebbles staid?
Hath the Spoiler found thee who wrecks the plains?
Didst thou trifle with him till he chilled thy veins?
But it murmured on with a mournful tone
Till fetters of ice were around it thrown.

Rose! why art thou drooping thy beautiful head?
Hast thou bowed to the frost-king's kiss of dread?
When thou sawest his deeds in the withering vale,
Didst thou, lingering, list to his varnished tale?
And she answered not, but strove to fold
In her bosom the blight of his dalliance bold.

Yet ye still have a voice to the musing heart,
Tree, Stream and Rose, as ye sadly part,
"We are symbols, ye say, of the hasting doom
Of youth, and of health, and of beauty's bloom,
When Disease, with a hectic flush doth glow,
And Time steal on with his trees of snow"

Is this all?-is your painful lesson done?
And they spoke in their bitterness, every one,
"The soul that admits in an evil hour,
The breath of vice to its sacred bower,
Will find its peace with its glory die,
Like the fading hues of an autumn sky."

Oak In Autumn

Old oak! old oak! the chosen one,
Round whkh my poet's mesh I twine,
When rosy wakes the joyous sun,
Or, wearied, sinks at day's decline,
I see the frost-king here and there,
Claim some brown leaflet for his own,
Or point in cold derision where
He soon shall rear the usurper's throne.
Too soon! too soon! in crimson bright,
Vain mockery of thy woe, he'll flout,
And proudly climb thy topmost height,
To hang his flaunting signal out;
While thou, as round thine honours fall,
Shalt stand with seam'd and naked bark,
Like banner-staff, so lone and tall,
His ruthless victory to mark.
1, too, old friend, when thou art gone,
Must pensive to my casement go,
Or 1ike the shuddering Druid, moan
The withering of his mistletoe;
But when young Spring, with matin clear,
Awakes the bird, the stream, the tree,
Fain would I at her call appear,
And hang my slender wreath on thee.

The Dying Philosopher

I have crept forth to die among the trees.
They have sweet voices that I love to hear,
Sweet, lute-like voices. They have been as friends
In my adversity-when sick and faint
I stretched me in their shadow all day long,
They were not weary of me. They sent down
Soft summer breezes, fraught with pitying sighs,
To fan my blanching cheek. Their lofty boughs
Pointed with thousand fingers to the sky,
And round their trunks the wild vine fondly clung,
Nursing her clusters; and they did not check
Her clasping tendrils, nor deceive her trust,
Nor blight her blossoms, and go towering up
In their cold stateliness, while on the earth
She sank to die. But thou, rejoicing bird,
Why pourest thou such a rich and mellow lay
On my dull ear? Poor bird!-I gave thee crumbs,
And fed thy nested little ones! so thou
(Unlike to man!) thou dost remember it.
O mine own race!-how ohen have ye sate
Gathered around my table, shared my cup,
And worn my raiment-yea, far more than this,
Been sheltered in my bosom, but to turn
And lift the heel against me, and cast out
My bleeding heart in morsels to the world,
Like catering cannibals. Take me not back
To those imprisoning curtains, broidered thick
With pains, beneath whose sleepless canopy
I've pined away so long. The purchased care,
The practiced sympathy, the fawning tone
Of him who on my vesture casteth lots,
The weariness, the secret measuring
How long I have to live, the guise of grief
So coarsely worn-I would not longer brook
Such torturing ministry. Let me die here-
'Tis but a little while. Let me die here.
Have patience, Nature, with thy feeble son,
So soon to be forgot, and from thine arms
Thou gentle mother, from thy true embrace,
Let my freed spirit pass. Alas! how vain
The wreath that Fame would bind around our tomb-
The winds shall waste it, and the worms destroy,
While from its home of bliss the disrobed soul
Looks not upon its greenness, nor deplores
Its withering loss. Thou who hast toiled to earn
The fickle praise of far posterity,
Come, weigh it at the grave's brink, here with me,
If thou canst weigh a dream. Hail, holy stars!
Heaven's stainless watchers o'er a world of woe,
Look down once more upon me. When again,
In solemn night's dark regency, ye ope
Your searching eyes, me shall ye not behold
Among the living. Let me join the song
With which ye sweep along your glorious way;
Teach me your hymn of praise. What have I said?
I will not learn of you, for ye shall fall.
Lo! with swift wing I mount above your spheres,
To see the Invisible, to know the Unknown,
To love the Uncreated! Earth, farewell!

Niagara

Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on
Unfathom'd and resistless. God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead: and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet. And he cloth give
Thy voice of thunder, power to speak of
Him Eternally-bidding the lip of man
Keep silence-and upon thine altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise. Earth fears to lift
The insect-trump that tells her trifling joys
Or fleeting triumphs, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn. Proud Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and all his waves
Retire abash'd. For he hath need to sleep,
Sometimes, like a spent laborer, calling home
His boisterous billows, from their vexing play.
To a long, dreary calm: but thy strong tide
Faints not, nor ever with failing heart, forgets
Its everlasting lesson, night or day.
The morning stars, that hailed creation's birth,
Heard thy hoarse anthem, mixing with their song
Jehovah's name; and the dissolving fires,
That wait the mandate of the day of doom
To wreck the earth, shall find it deep inscrib'd
Upon thy rocky scroll. The lofty trees
That list thy teachings, scorn the lighter lore
Of the too fitful winds; while their young leaves
Gather fresh greenness from thy living spray,
Yet tremble at the baptism. Lo! yon birds,
How bold they venture near, dipping their wing
In all thy mist and foam. Perchance 'tis meet
For them to touch thy garment's hem, or stir
Thy diamond wreath, who sport upon the cloud
Unblam'd, or warble at the gate of heaven
Without reproof. But, as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful, with our erring lips to talk
Familiarly of thee. Methinks, to trace
Thine awful features, with our pencil's point
Were but to press on Sinai. Thou dost speak
Alone of God, who pour'd thee as a drop
From his right-hand,-bidding the soul that looks
Upon thy fearful majesty, be still,
Be humbly wrapp'd in its own nothingness,
And lose itself in Him.

Copyright©2006 Annie Finch