Poem by Charles Tennyson Turner

East or West?

I sat within a window, looking west,
On a fair autumn eve; the forest leaves
Moved o'er a fiery sunset, vision blest
After that day of storm and rainy eaves.
While thus I gazed, I heard a sweet voice cry:--
"Come to the east, and see the rainbow die.
On the last shower anon the moon will rise,
And light the village when the rainbow dies."
Betwixt the two I cold not well decide;
For each was fair, and both would vanish soon.
But that sweet voice cried eastward still: I knew
No light would pierce the wood when day withdrew;
So I went east and to the rising moon
The village brightened when the rainbow died.

1. The South-Foreland Electric Light
2. The Hydraulic Ram, or The Influence of Sound on Mood
3. Silkworms and Spiders
4. The Sonneteer to the Sea-Shell
5. On the Eclipse of the Moon of October 1865

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