| Poems by Women |
LESSONS FROM THE GORSE
Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]
Mountain gorses, ever-golden,
Cankered not the whole
year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong,
Howsoever pricked and
holden,
Like your thorny blooms, and so
Trodden on by rain and snow,
Up
the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?
Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Do ye teach us to be glad
When no
summer can be had,
Blooming in our inward bosoms?
Ye whom God preserveth
still,
Set as lights upon a hill,
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty
liveth still!
Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
From that academic chair
Canopied with
azure air,
That the wisest word man reaches
Is the humblest he can
speak?
Ye, who live on mountain peak,
Yet live low along the ground,
beside the grasses meek!
Mountain gorses, since Linnaeus
Knelt beside you on the sod,
For your
beauty thanking God, -
For your teaching, ye should see us
Bowing in
prostration new!
Whence arisen, - if one or two
Drops be on our cheeks - O
world, they are not tears but dew.
From: Stevenson, Burton Egbert.
The Home Book of Verse.
This poet:
[Author index]
This collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis.
Collection © 1999-2002 Jone Johnson Lewis.
Citing poems from these pages:
| Author. "Poem Title." Women's History: Poems by Women. Jone Johnson Lewis, editor. URL: (date of logon) |
