A Snow Mountain.

Can I make white enough my thought for thee,
    Or wash my words in light? Thou hast no mate
To sit aloft in the silence silently
    And twin those matchless heights undesecrate.
Reverend as Lear, when, lorn of shelter, he
    Stood, with his old white head, surprised at fate;
Alone as Galileo, when, set free,
    Before the stars he mused disconsolate.

Ay, and remote, as the dead lords of song,
    Great masters who have made us what we are,
For thou and they have taught us how to long
    And feel a sacred want of the fair and far:
Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire -
Our only greatness is that we aspire.

Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow was an English poet and novelist known for her popular stories and poems in the 19th century. Her work, including 'Mopsa the Fairy', earned her recognition during her lifetime. She was also involved in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Ingelow published several poetry collections, with her first in 1863, which was well-received and cemented her reputation as a poet.

Jean Ingelow

An Old Wife's Song.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

Now Winter Past, The White-Thorn Bower. (Hymn)

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

The White Moon Wasteth.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

A Gleaning Song.

Jean Ingelow, 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.

Looking Down.

Mountains of sorrow, I have heard your moans,
    And the moving of your pines; but we sit high
    On your green shoulders, nearer stoops the sky,
And pure airs visit us from all the zones.
    Sweet world beneath, too happy far to sigh,
Dost thou look thus beheld from heavenly thrones?
No; not for all the love that counts thy stones,
    While sleepy with great light the valleys lie.
Strange, rapturous peace! its sunshine doth enfold
    My heart; I have escaped to the days divine,
It seemeth as bygone ages back had rolled,
    And all the eldest past was now, was mine;
Nay, even as if Melchizedec of old
    Might here come forth to us with bread and wine.

Jean Ingelow

A Reverie.

        When I do sit apart
        And commune with my heart,
She brings me forth the treasures once my own;
        Shows me a happy place
        Where leaf-buds swelled apace,
And wasting rims of snow in sunlight shone.

        Rock, in a mossy glade,
        The larch-trees lend thee shade,
That just begin to feather with their leaves;
        From out thy crevice deep
        White tufts of snowdrops peep,
And melted rime drips softly from thine eaves.

        Ah, rock, I know, I know
        That yet thy snowdrops grow,
And yet doth sunshine fleck them through the tree,
        Whose sheltering branches hide
        The cottage at its side,
That nevermore will shade or shelter me.

        I know the stockdoves' note
    ...

Jean Ingelow

Requiescat In Pace!

My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.

On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
The strong terrible mountains he longed, he longed to be;
And he stooped to kiss his father, and he stooped to kiss his mother,
And till I said, "Adieu, sweet Sir," he quite forgot me.

He wrote of their white raiment, the ghostly capes that screen them,
Of the storm winds that beat them, their thunder-rents and scars,
And the paradise of purple, and the golden slopes atween them,
And fields, where grow God's gentian bells, and His crocus stars.

He wrote of frail gauzy clouds, that drop on the...

Jean Ingelow

Dominion.

When found the rose delight in her fair hue?
Color is nothing to this world; 'tis I
That see it. Farther, I have found, my soul,
That trees are nothing to their fellow trees;
It is but I that love their stateliness,
And I that, comforting my heart, do sit
At noon beneath their shadow. I will step
On the ledges of this world, for it is mine;
But the other world ye wot of, shall go too;
I will carry it in my bosom. O my world,
That was not built with clay!
    Consider it
(This outer world we tread on) as a harp, -
A gracious instrument on whose fair strings
We learn those airs we shall be set to play
When mortal hours are ended. Let the wings,
Man, of thy spirit move on it as wind,
And draw forth melody. Why shouldst thou yet
Lie grovelling? More is w...

Jean Ingelow

Married Lovers.

Come away, the clouds are high,
Put the flashing needles by.
Many days are not to spare,
Or to waste, my fairest fair!
All is ready. Come to-day,
For the nightingale her lay,
When she findeth that the whole
Of her love, and all her soul,
Cannot forth of her sweet throat,
Sobs the while she draws her breath,
And the bravery of her note
In a few days altereth.

Come, ere she despond, and see
In a silent ecstasy
Chestnuts heave for hours and hours
All the glory of their flowers
To the melting blue above,
That broods over them like love.
Leave the garden walls, where blow
Apple-blossoms pink, and low
Ordered beds of tulips fine.
Seek the blossoms made divine
With a scent that is their soul.
These are soulless. Bring the whit...

Jean Ingelow

Above The Clouds.

And can this be my own world?
    'Tis all gold and snow,
Save where scarlet waves are hurled
    Down yon gulf below.
'Tis thy world, 'tis my world,
    City, mead, and shore,
For he that hath his own world
    Hath many worlds more.

Jean Ingelow