Sonnets. 9. I Know Not Why, But All This Weary Day
I know not why, but all this weary day, Suggested by no definite grief or pain, Sad fancies have been flitting through my brain; Now it has been a vessel losing way, Rounding a stormy headland; now a gray Dull waste of clouds above a wintry main; And then, a banner, drooping in the rain, And meadows beaten into bloody clay. Strolling at random with this shadowy woe At heart, I chanced to wander hither! Lo! A league of desolate marsh-land, with its lush, Hot grasses in a noisome, tide-left bed, And faint, warm airs, that nestle in the hush, Like whispers round the body of the dead!
Henry Timrod’s other poems:
- The Stream is Flowing from the West
- To Whom?
- Sonnets. 14. Are These Wild Thoughts, Thus Fettered in My Rhymes
- An Exotic
- 1866 – Addressed to the Old Year
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