A Mood

A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--
Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;
A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;
A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;
A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken--
Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thomas Bailey Aldrich was an American writer, poet, critic, and editor. He is notable for his long editorship of The Atlantic Monthly. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, much of his writing was inspired by his experiences in the city. He wrote volumes of poetry, novels, and short stories. Aldrich's semi-autobiographical book, "The Story of a Bad Boy," is considered an early example of the "bad boy" genre in American literature.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Like Crusoe, Walking By The Lonely Strand

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Simple Poetry

Monody On The Death Of Wendell Phillips

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Simple Poetry

A Dedication

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Anticipation.[1]

"Coming events cast their shadow before."


I had a vision in the summer light -
Sorrow was in it, and my inward sight
Ached with sad images. The touch of tears
Gushed down my cheeks: - the figured woes of years
Casting their shadows across sunny hours.
Oh, there was nothing sorrowful in flowers
Wooing the glances of an April sun,
Or apple blossoms opening one by one
Their crimson bosoms - or the twittered words
And warbled sentences of merry birds; -
Or the small glitter and the humming wings
Of golden flies and many colored things -
Oh, these were nothing sad - nor to see Her,
Sitting beneath the comfortable stir
Of early leaves - casting the playful grace
Of moving shadows in so fair a face -
Nor in her brow serene - nor in the love

Thomas Hood

I Vex Me Not With Brooding On The Years

I vex me not with brooding on the years
That were ere I drew breath: why should I then
Distrust the darkness that may fall again
When life is done?    Perchance in other spheres--
Dead planets--I once tasted mortal tears,
And walked as now among a throng of men,
Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,
Questioning death, and solacing my fears.
Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this,
Vague memories that hold me with a spell,
Touches of unseen lips upon my brow,
Breathing some incommunicable bliss!
In years foregone, O Soul, was all not well?
Still lovelier life awaits thee.    Fear not thou!

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Memory

My mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour--
'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May--
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Ode To Melancholy.

Come, let us set our careful breasts,
Like Philomel, against the thorn,
To aggravate the inward grief,
That makes her accents so forlorn;
The world has many cruel points,
Whereby our bosoms have been torn,
And there are dainty themes of grief,
In sadness to outlast the morn, -
True honor's dearth, affection's death,
Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn,
With all the piteous tales that tears
Have water'd since the world was born.

The world! - it is a wilderness,
Where tears are hung on every tree;
For thus my gloomy phantasy
Makes all things weep with me!
Come let us sit and watch the sky,
And fancy clouds, where no clouds be;
Grief is enough to blot the eye,
And make heaven black with misery.
Why should birds sing such merry notes,

Thomas Hood

A Mood.

Bowed hearts that hold the saddest memories
Are the most beautiful; and such make sweet
Light happy moods of alien natures which
Their sadness contacts, and so sanctifies.

And such to me is an old, gabled house,
Deserted and neglected and unknown
Within the dreamy hollow of its hills,
Dark, cedared hills and fruitless orchards sear;
With but its host of shrouded memories
Haunting its low and desolate rooms and halls,
Its roomy hearths and cob-webbed crevices.

Here in dim rainy noons I love to sit,
And hear the running rain along the roof,
The creak and crack of noises that are born
Of unseen and mysterious agencies;
The dripping footfalls of the wind adown
Lone winding stairways massy-banistered;
A clapping door and then a sudden hush
Tha...

Madison Julius Cawein

A Touch Of Nature

When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold
Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould,
And folded green things in dim woods unclose
Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes
Into my veins and makes me kith and kin
To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows.
Sitting beside this crumbling sea-coal fire,
Here in the city's ceaseless roar and din,
Far from the brambly paths I used to know,
Far from the rustling brooks that slip and shine
Where the Neponset alders take their glow,
I share the tremulous sense of bud and briar
And inarticulate ardors of the vine.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich