Poem by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

First Series. 10. An upper chamber in a darkened house

An upper chamber in a darkened house,
Where, ere his footsteps reached ripe manhood's brink,
Terror and anguish were his lot to drink;
I cannot rid the thought nor hold it close
But dimly dream upon that man alone:
Now though the autumn clouds most softly pass,
The cricket chides beneath the doorstep stone
And greener than the season grows the grass.
Nor can I drop my lids nor shade my brows,
But there he stands beside the lifted sash;
And with a swooping of the heart, I think
Where the black shingles slope to meet the boughs
And, shattered on the roof like smallest snows,
The tiny petals of the mountain ash.

1. First Series. 7. Dank fens of cedar, hemlock branches gray
2. First Series. 26. For Nature daily through her grand design
3. First Series. 6. Not sometimes, but to him that heeds the whole
4. First Series. 27. So to the mind long brooding but on it
5. First Series. 8. As when down some broad river dropping, we

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