The Snow Man.

Poor shape grotesque that careless hands have wrought!
    Frail wistful thing, left gaping at the sun
    With empty grin, 'tis well no blood shall run
Within thy frozen veins, no kindling thought
Light up those eyeless sockets wherein naught
    But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire
    Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire
Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought.
Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry,
    And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands,
'Tis well thou hast no language to decry
    Thy poor creator or his vain commands;
No tear to shed that thou so soon must die,
    No voice to lift in prayer where no god understands!

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

No biography available

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

A Song For The Hills.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

Love And Art.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

Death.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, 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.

November, 1851

    What dost thou here, O soul,
Beyond thy own control,
Under the strange wild sky?
0 stars, reach down your hands,
And clasp me in your silver bands,
I tremble with this mystery!--
Flung hither by a chance
Of restless circumstance,
Thou art but here, and wast not sent;
Yet once more mayest thou draw
By thy own mystic law
To the centre of thy wonderment.

    Why wilt thou stop and start?
Draw nearer, oh my heart,
And I will question thee most wistfully;
Gather thy last clear resolution
To look upon thy dissolution.

    The great God's life throbs far and free,
And thou art but a spark
Known only in thy dark,
Or a foam-fleck upon the awful ocean,
Thyself thy slender dignity,
Thy own thy vexing mystery,
In the vast...

George MacDonald

A Funeral Fantasie.

Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!
Haggard as spectres vision-like and dumb,
Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,
Towards that sad lair the pale procession come
Where the grave closes on the night below.

With dim, deep-sunken eye,
Crutched on his staff, who trembles tottering by?
As wrung from out the shattered heart, one groan
Breaks the deep hush alone!
Crushed by the iron fate, he seems to gather
All life's last strength to stagger to the bier,
And hearken Do these cold lips murmur "Father?"
The sharp rain, drizzling through that place of fear,
...

Friedrich Schiller

Winter.

Majestic King of storms! around
    Thy wan and hoary brow
A spotless diadem is bound
    Of everlasting snow:
Time, which dissolves all earthly things,
O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!

The sun, with his refulgent beams,
    Thaws not thy icy zone;
Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,
    That sleep around thy throne,
Whose crystal barriers may defy
The genial warmth of summer's sky.

What human foot shall dare intrude
    Beyond the howling waste,
Or view the untrodden solitude,
    Where thy dark home is placed;
In those far realms of death where light
Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?

The earth has felt thine iron tread,
    The streams have ceased to flow,
The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,
    And...

Susanna Moodie

The April Snow-Storm - 1858.

Spread lightly, virgin shower,
Your winding-sheet of snow;
Winter has lost his power,
But mock not at his woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,
Nor blow the breath of scorn;
Gently.    Thy sire is weak;
And thou, his latest-born.

Frail type of life thou art:
At first, pure as the snow
We come - abide - depart;
What more, th' Immortals know.

Fall gently, virgin shower,
Though wild the west wind raves;
Watch through this midnight hour
Above the new-made graves!

            -    -    -

Spread gently, virgin shower,
Your winding sheet of snow;
My heart has lost its power,
But mock not at its woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,
Treat not her corse with scorn;
Gently.    My heart is weak;
She, too, ...

Charles Sangster

Songs Of The Winter Days

    I.

    The sky has turned its heart away,
    The earth its sorrow found;
    The daisies turn from childhood's play,
    And creep into the ground.

    The earth is black and cold and hard;
    Thin films of dry white ice,
    Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred,
    The children's feet entice.

    Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned
    The winter in the land;
    With idle icicles adorned,
    That mill-wheel soon will stand.

    But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part,
    Is to let in the cold;
    We'll make a summer of the heart,
    And laugh at winter old.


    II.

    With vague dead gleam the morning white
    Comes through the window-panes;
    The clouds have fallen all the ni...

George MacDonald

The Infanticide.

Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave the rest for crime!
Now take, O world! my last farewell receiving
My parting kisses in these tears they dwell!
Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,
Now we are quits heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well!

Farewell, ye suns that once to joy invited,
Changed for the mould beneath the funeral shade;
Farewell, farewell, thou rosy time delighted,
Luring to soft desire the careless maid,
Pale gossamers of gold, farewell, sweet dreaming
Fancies the children that an Eden bore!
Blossoms that died while dawn itself was gleaming,
Opening in happy sunlight never more.

Swanlike the robe ...

Friedrich Schiller