Emma Lazarus: Regret

Emma Lazarus

(1849 – 1887)

 

Regret

 

Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,

Reddening the road and deepening the green

On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;

Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between

These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen

But dimly on the far horizon’s edge.

 

In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,

Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun

Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,

No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,

No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone

Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.

 

Only a tender, unnamed half-regret

For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;

A yearning aspiration, fainter yet,

For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,

Now while brief showers ruffle grass and corn,

And all the earth lies shadowed, grave, and wet;

 

Space for the happy soul to pause again

From pure content of all unbroken bliss,

To dream the future void of grief and pain,

And muse upon the past, in reveries

More sweet for knowledge that the present is

Not all complete, with mist and clouds and rain.

 

Emma Lazarus poetry

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