Wedding Bells

Eliza Cook

1818 –

1889

Twilight shade is calmly falling
     Round about the dew-robed flowers;
Philomel’s lone song is calling
     Lovers to their fairy bowers;

Echo, on the zephyrs gliding,
     Bears a voice that seems to say,
“Ears and hearts, come, list my tiding,
     This has been a wedding-day.”

Hark! the merry chimes are pealing,
     Soft and glad the music swells;
Gaily on the night-wind stealing,
     Sweetly sound the wedding bells.

Every simple breast rejoices;
     Laughter rides upon the gale;
Happy hearts and happy voices
     Dwell within the lowly vale.

Oh, how sweet, on zephyrs gliding,
     Sound the bells that seem to say,
“Ears and hearts, come, list my tiding,
     This has been a wedding-day.”

Hark! the merry chimes are pealing,
     Soft and glad the music swells;
Gaily on the night-wind stealing,
     Sweetly sound the wedding bells.

This poem appeared in Melaia and Other Poems (Charles Tilt, 1840). It is in the public domain.

Song of Old Time

I wear not the purple of earth-born kings,
Nor the stately ermine of lordly things;
But monarch and courtier, though great they be,
Must fall from their glory and bend to me.
My sceptre is gemless; yet who can say
They will not come under its mighty sway?
Ye may learn who I am,—there’s the passing chime,
And the dial to herald me, Old King Time!

Softly I creep, like a thief in the night,
After cheeks all blooming and eyes all light;
My steps are seen on the patriarch’s brow,
In the deep-worn furrows and locks of snow.

Eliza Cook

2017

A Song for Merry Harvest

Bring forth the harp, and let us sweep its fullest, loudest string.
The bee below, the bird above, are teaching us to sing
A song for merry harvest; and the one who will not bear
His grateful part partakes a boon he ill deserves to share.
The grasshopper is pouring forth his quick and trembling notes;
The laughter of the gleaner’s child, the heart’s own music floats.
Up! up! I say, a roundelay from every voice that lives
Should welcome merry harvest, and bless the God that gives.

Eliza Cook

2017

Snow

Brave Winter and I shall ever agree,
Though a stern and frowning gaffer is he.
I like to hear him, with hail and rain,
Come tapping against the window pane;
I joy to see him come marching forth
Begirt with the icicle gems of the north;
But I like him best when he comes bedight
In his velvet robes of stainless white.

A cheer for the snow—the drifting snow!
Smoother and purer than beauty’s brow!
The creature of thought scarce likes to tread
On the delicate carpet so richly spread.

Eliza Cook

2017

Poems

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Wedding Bells

More by this poet

Song of Old Time

A Song for Merry Harvest

Snow

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