American poet (1829-1887)
The grandeur of each mountain peak
That rears to heaven its granite form;
The craggy cliffs where eagles shriek
Amid the thunder and the storm.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"New England"
O prophet flowers! with lips of bloom,
Surpassing, in their beauty,
The pearly tints of ocean shells--
Ye teach me faith and duty.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Under the Leaves"
Oh! think not that my eyes are dry,
Because you mark no falling tears:
There flows a river deep and dark,
Whose waters ebb not with the years.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Veiled Grief"
O that all human hearts might join the strain;
Then Hate, and Bigotry, and Sin would die;
Then Peace would reign and wear its olive crown,
And War with blood-stained feet no longer track
Earth's fair domain, or wave its crimson flag.
Then Pride would lay its flaunting mantle by;
The cry of Hunger cease--the oppressor's rod
Would scourge no more, but man be linked to man
In one unbroken chain of brotherhood.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Love of God"
Day's weary toil is o'er;
No worldly strife my heartfelt worship mars:
Beneath the mystery of the silent stars,
I tremble and adore.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Midnight Voice"
How many varied scenes this world displays
To fill the heart with joy, the lips with praise!
Go where we may and Beauty follows too,
With radiant smiles, and shapes forever new.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Beauty"
O, when I think how many close their eyes
To all the beauty that around them lies,
Dazzled by gold, misled by fashion's glare;
When I behold the pallid brows of care
That ache in factory rooms from dawn till night,
Shut out from every pleasant sound and sight;
And when I read with shame of women fair,
In crowded cities, driven to despair,
Who labor night and day, half paid, half fed,
While little children cry to them for bread--
I do not wonder that the doors of sin
Stand open wide, and thousands enter in!
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Beauty"
Now winds are wild, and sere leaves fall;
A dying glory mantles all;
I sit and watch the tears of rain
Steal slowly down the window-pane.
The wailing of the Autumn blast
Stirs many a dead leaf of the Past
Within my soul; I seem to hear
The wan lips of the dying year,
Mournfully, oh, mournfully,
Chant a low, sad melody!
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"In Memoriam"
Night watches calmly with her starry eyes
All tremulous with love.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"To My Soul"
I cannot tell you if the dead,
Who loved us fondly when on earth,
Walk by our side, sit at our hearth,
By ties of old affection led....
But this I know--in many dreams
They come to us from realms afar,
And leave the golden gates ajar
Through which immortal glory streams.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Dead"
With strange, fantastic shapes they haunt my brain;
A sky of amber, streaked with silver rain;
A blaze of glory, Heaven's resplendent fires;
A temple gleaming with a thousand spires;
A sea of light that laves a shore of stars;
The gates of Paradise, swift-rolling cars;
A golden pulse, quick-beating through the night;
Contending armies mailed in armor bright;
A gauzy curtain drawn by unseen hands;
Night's gorgeous drapery looped with starry bands;
Vast, burning cities, that lie far away;
Blushes on Nature's face--pale ghosts of Day;
A boundless prairie swept by phantom fire;
The vibrant strings of some gigantic lyre;
Emblazoned chariots ever skyward driven;
God writing in the open book of Heaven;
The flaming banner of the North unfurled;
The mystery that dares a boasting world!
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Aurora Borealis"
My tears fall inward on my heart,
And, dew-like, keep its memories green:
Sad strains, unheard by other ears,
Break forth for me from lips unseen.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Veiled Grief"
The angel Beauty walks her radiant way:
O, follow her! She never leads astray.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Beauty"
And if with prayer and praise they heart is filled,
Its fever cooled, its stormy passions stilled,
If thou dost catch faint glimpses of that shore
Where sorrow dies, and parting is no more,
And thou canst almost solve death's mystery,
O, then, God's handmaid, Beauty, dwells with thee!
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Beauty"
Where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees the fair flowers growing.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"Under the Leaves"
All human love is a faint type of God's;
An echoing note from a harmonious whole;
A feeble spark from an undying flame;
A single drop from an unfathomed sea:
But God's is infinite; it fills the earth
And heaven, and the broad, trackless realms of space.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Love of God"