Poem: “Misgivings” by Herman Melville

Poems From Battle Pieces

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American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Clarel
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Misgivings
(1860.)

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 bursting 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 disheartened 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 storm we feel:
The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

< < < The Portent
The Conflict of Convictions > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Herman Melville – Poems by Herman Melville – Clarel

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Poems From Battle Pieces

Misgivings(1860.)

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Misgivings
(1860.)