Premonition

George Santayana 1863 (Madrid) – 1952 (Rome)



The muffled syllables that Nature speaks
Fill us with deeper longing for her word;
She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,
She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

A hidden light illumines all our seeing,
An unknown love enchants our solitude.
We feel and know that from the depths of being
Exhales an infinite, a perfect good.

Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow
And be not happy like a naked star,
Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow,
Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.

Our heart strings are too coarse for Nature's fingers
Deftly to quicken as she pulses on,
And the harsh tremor that among them lingers
Will into sweeter silence die anon.

We catch the broken prelude and suggestion
Of things unuttered, needing to be sung;
We know the burden of them, and their question
Lies heavy on the heart, nor finds a tongue.

Till haply, lightning through the storm of ages,
Our sullen secret flash from sky to sky,
Glowing in some diviner poet's pages
And swelling into rapture from this sigh.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

56 sec read
98

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CXCX DEDE FGFG HIHI JKJK
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,026
Words 186
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

George Santayana

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana, was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. more…

All George Santayana poems | George Santayana Books

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