Poetry

Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9783734790256
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852) was a depiction of life for African Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. She wrote more than 20 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stands on social issues of the day.Table of Contents: - The Other World- The Twelve Months: A New Year's Dream- Lines...- Knocking- The Crocus- Consolation- Mary at the Cross- The Old Psalm Tune

The Twelve Months: A New Year's Dream

The mystic hour had come: the parting year
Sighed its adieu,—the midnight bell had tolled
Its last sad requiem.
It was an hour for fancy's wildest range,
And in a magic trance my steps she led
Down to the caverns of the hoary deep.

Fair was the place; no mortal eye before
Had e'er upon its radiant glories gazed;—
No foot of man e'er sullied its pure strands.
Around the cave a light unearthly shone,
By whose clear beam the cavern's vast extent
Throughout its wide expansion stood revealed.

High rose the brilliant walls of crystal clear,
And many a sparkling gem to earth unknown
Flashed its bright radiance there. The glittering roof,
Hung with stalactites wrought in every form
That nature's art could carve, flashed down its light;
And the bright sanded floor, spread far and wide,
Sent back the gleam on the pure sparkling gems
And dazzling spars that glittered in its beam.

From many a coral cleft and crystal rock
The broad sea plants their emerald drapery wreathed.
No sound amid the spacious vaults was heard
Save the soft rippling of the murmuring wave,
Or the last dying tones of Nereid's harp
In some far distant bower.

But soon upon mine ear strange sounds there stole,
Of voices musical, whose choral swell
Mingled with softest tones of lyre and lute
Touched by etherial fingers. Fairy forms,
Through the far windings of the distant cave,
Came moving on with light and airy tread,
Till, full arrayed before my wondering eye,
Stood the twelve daughters of the rolling year.

Fierce was the brow of her who first advanced,
Rude, boisterous March, firm and erect her form;
Her eye, bright, dark and piercing, and her face
All frowning cold and chill: no lineament
Of the soft spring I traced, though born from her.

Fair April, next, with childish tread advanced,
Of features infantine, form immature,
Her dewy eye suffused with frequent tears,
Like rain drop on the purple violet's breast;
While yet upon her dimpled cheek there played
Smiles...