David Atwood Wasson

David Atwood Wasson Poems

David Atwood Wasson Biography

David Atwood Wasson (1823–1887) was an American minister and Transcendentalist author, an essayist and poet. He was early influenced by Thomas Carlyle, an influence he would shed; he is usually regarded as a disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was born in West Brooksville, Maine. He studied at Bowdoin College for just one year from 1845. After theological training at Bangor Theological Seminary, he became pastor at Groveland, Massachusetts, but only briefly after a conflict with his congregation. He then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts. He lost a position at the Medford Unitarian Church because of his abolitionist views. He was appointed by the "28th Congregational Society" of Boston, and succeeded Theodore Parker, who died in 1860, in 1865. In 1867 he became a founder of the Free Religious Association)

The Best Poem Of David Atwood Wasson

Joy-Month

Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings!
How he pours the dear pain of his gladness!
What a gush! and from out what golden springs!
What a rage of how sweet madness!

And golden the buttercup blooms by the way,
A song of the joyous ground;
While the melody rained from yonder spray
Is a blossom in fields of sound.

How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves!
How whispers each blade, 'I am blest!'
Rosy Heaven his lips to flowered earth gives,
With the costliest bliss of his breast.

Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature!
By cups of field and of sky,
By the brimming soul of every creature! -
Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I.

Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues! -
Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree,
To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs!
They utter the heart in me.

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