Henry Alford

My hand is lonely for your clasping, dear;
My ear is tired waiting for your call.
I want your strength to help, your laugh to cheer;
...

Again the solemn season--and again
That bleeding Brow, those wounded Hands and Feet--
Again that piercèd Side my vision meet;
...

Here are the brows of Quantock, purple--clad
With lavish heath--bloom: there, the banks of Tone.
Where is that woman, love--forlorn and sad,
...

Tell me, thou mild and melancholy bird,
Whence learnedst thou that meditative voice?
For all the forest--passages rejoice,
...

Saviour of them that trust in Thee,
Once more, with supplicating cries,
We lift the heart and bend the knee,
And bid Devotion's incense rise.
...

The calm of blessed Night
Is on Judaea's hills;
The full--orbed moon with cloudless light
Is sparkling on their rills:
...

Say wilt thou think of me when I'm away,
Borne from the threshold and laid in the clay,
Past and forgotten for many a day?
...

My own dear country, thy remembrance comes
Like softly--flowing music on my heart;
With thy green sunny hills, and happy homes,
...

At length here stand we, wrapt as in the cloud
In which light dwelt before the sun was born,
When the great fiat issued, in the morn
...

I.
This tranquil Sabbath morn hath hushed the earth
Into unwonted calm. The clear pale hills
Lie beneath level lines of sunny clouds,
...

I was a young fair tree:
Each spring with quivering green
My boughs were clad; and far
Down the deep vale, a light
...

The stars are clear and frosty, and the Earth
Is laid in her first sleep, secure and calm;
The glorious works of God, as at the first,
...

'RISE,' said the Master, 'come unto the feast.'
She heard the call and rose with willing feet;
   But thinking it not otherwise than meet
For such a bidding to put on her best,
...

The cowslip standeth in the grass,
The primrose in the budding grove
Hath laid her pale fair breast
On the green sward to rest:
...

Who shall declare the secret of thy birth,
Thou old companion of the circling earth?
And having reached with keen poetic sight
...

Methinks my spirit is too free
To come before thy presence high,
Obtruding on the earth and sky
Aught but their solemn joy at greeting thee;
...

O for a drosky and a pair,
To flee from wet, ennui, and care,--
To rush where Alps on Alps arise,
And genuine mountains pierce the skies;
...

See me, by elemental warfare torn
From yonder peak's aerial crest,
Now on the rifted breast
Of this ice--ocean borne
...

The simple folk once used to throng
These mouldering steps beneath,
And every child that passed along
Its soft petitions breathe,
...

Oh, what doth it avail, in busy care
The summer of our days to pass away
In--doors, nor forth into the sunny ray,
...