An Exile's Song

My soul is like a prisoned lark,
    That sings and dreams of liberty,
The nights are long, the days are dark,
    Away from home, away from thee!

My only joy is in my dreams,
    When I thy loving face can see.
How dreary the awakening seems,
    Away from home, away from thee!

At dawn I hasten to the shore,
    To gaze across the sparkling sea--
The sea is bright to me no more,
    Which parts me from my home and thee.

At twilight, when the air grows chill,
    And cold and leaden is the sea,
My tears like bitter dews distil,
    Away from home, away from thee.

I could not live, did I not know
    That thou art ever true to me,
I could not bear a doubtful woe,
    Away from home, away from thee.

I could not live, did I not hear
    A voice that sings the day to be,
When hitherward a ship shall steer,
    To bear me back to home and thee.

Oh, when at last that day shall break
    In sunshine on the dancing sea,
It will be brighter for the sake
    Of my return to home and thee!

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

Trafalgar Square

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Imitated From Wordsworth

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

On An Edinburgh Advocate

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

The Best Pipe

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

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The Return

I have been where the roses blow,
    Where the orange ripens its gold,
And the mountains stand with their peaks of snow,
    To fence away the cold,
Where the lime and the myrtle lent
    Their fragrance to the air,
To make the land of my banishment
    More exquisitely fair.

And I heard the ring dove call
    To his mate in the blossoming trees,
And I saw the white waves heave and fall.
    Far away over southern seas.
I listened along the beach,
    By the shore of the shifting sea,
To the waves, till I knew their murmured speech,
    And the message they bore to me.

And I watched the great sails furled.
    Like the wings of some ocean bird,
That brought me, out of another world,
    A warning, and a word;
For still beside m...

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The Outcast's Farewell

The sun is banished,
The daylight vanished,
No rosy traces
    Are left behind.
Here in the meadow
I watch the shadow
Of forms and faces
    Upon your blind.

Through swift transitions,
In new positions,
My eyes still follow
    One shape most fair.
My heart delaying
Awhile, is playing
With pleasures hollow,
    Which mock despair.

I feel so lonely,
I long once only
To pass an hour
    With you, O sweet!
To touch your fingers,
Where fragrance lingers
From some rare flower,
    And kiss your feet.

But not this even
To me is given.
Of all sad mortals
    Most sad am I,
Never to meet you,
Never to greet you,
Nor pass your portals
    Before I die.

All men scorn ...

Robert Fuller Murray

Exile

By the sad waters of separation
Where we have wandered by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
Of the old memorial days.

In music I have no consolation,
No roses are pale enough for me;
The sound of the waters of separation
Surpasseth roses and melody.

By the sad waters of separation
Dimly I hear from an hidden place
The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
Hardly can I remember your face.

If you be dead, no proclamation
Sprang to me over the waste, gray sea:
Living, the waters of separation
Sever for ever your soul from me.

No man knoweth our desolation;
Memory pales of the old delight;
While the sad waters of separation
Bear us on to the ultimate night.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

The Exile.

Night waneth fast, the morning star
    Saddens with light the glimmering sea,
Whose waves shall soon to realms afar
    Waft me from hope, from love, and thee.
Coldly the beam from yonder sky
    Looks o'er the waves that onward stray;
But colder still the stranger's eye
    To him whose home is far away

Oh, not at hour so chill and bleak,
    Let thoughts of me come o'er thy breast;
But of the lost one think and speak,
    When summer suns sink calm to rest.
So, as I wander, Fancy's dream
    Shall bring me o'er the sunset seas,
Thy look in every melting beam,
    Thy whisper in each dying breeze.

Thomas Moore

In Exile.

"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs." - Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.


Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off,
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.


After the Southern day of heavy toil,
How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
Up from one's pipe-stem thro...

Emma Lazarus

To Alfred Tennyson--1883

Familiar with thy melody,
    We go debating of its power,
    As churls, who hear it hour by hour,
Contemn the skylark's minstrelsy--

As shepherds on a Highland lea
    Think lightly of the heather flower
    Which makes the moorland's purple dower,
As far away as eye can see.

Let churl or shepherd change his sky,
    And labour in the city dark,
            Where there is neither air nor room--
How often will the exile sigh
    To hear again the unwearied lark,
            And see the heather's lavish bloom!

Robert Fuller Murray