Misgivings



When ocean-clouds over inland hills
Sweep storming in late autumn brown,
And horror the sodden valley fills,
And the spire falls crashing in the town,
I muse upon my country's ills--
The tempest burning from the waste of Time
On the world's fairest hope linked with man's foulest crime.

Nature's dark side is heeded now--
(Ah! optimist-cheer dishartened flown)--
A child may read the moody brow
Of yon black mountain lone.
With shouts the torrents down the gorges go,
And storms are formed behind the storms we feel:
The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

31 sec read
95

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABACC DEDEXFF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 587
Words 102
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 7, 7

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American writer best known for the novel Moby-Dick. more…

All Herman Melville poems | Herman Melville Books

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