To Eloquence

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Title:     To Eloquence
Author: James Avis Bartley [More Titles by Bartley]

Ah Eloquence! thou God-like power;
That swayest the human heart,
We still must call thee, rarest dower,
In the high gift of Art;
And still thou shalt be styled a queen,
To brighten earth's grief-shaded green.

When thou dost falter sorrow's tale,
With trembling accents low,
The plaintive breezes of the vale,
With mingled pathos, flow;
The melting eye is bathed in tears,
And grief, in every face, appears.

When thou dost stand in mortal's view,
And breathe thy thoughts of flame,
The conscious soul, conceives them, too,
And breathes and burns the same;--
And when, in fancy, thou dost soar,
'Tis like Niag'ra's thundering roar.

When thou dost tell of living joys
Far up in heaven above,
The rapturous music of thy voice,
Is like the Voice of Love--
The entranced spirit flits away
To bathe in seas of whitest day.

[The end]
James Avis Bartley's poem: To Eloquence

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